i  AiTH  AND  Freedom 

BY 

Stopford  A.Brooke 


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THE  PHILOSOPHY  OF  CARLYLE, 

By  Edwin  D.  Mead. 


/  vol.,  ibmo.  $/.oo. 


A  careful,  thorough  survey  of  Carlyle's  career  as  a  writer, 
in  order  to  estimate  justly  his  rank,  characteristics,  and  value 
as  a  thinker.  It  will  be  read  with  interest  and  gratitude  by  all 
who  admire  Carlyle's  genius. 


/*'or  sale  by  all  booksellers,  or  sent,  postpaid,  on  receipt  of 
price,  by  the  Publishers, 


HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  &  CO.,    •  BOSTON. 


Faith  and  Freedom. 


BY 

y 

STOPFORD  A.  BROOKE. 


BOSTON : 
Geo.  H.  Ellis,  141  Franklin  Street. 
1881. 


Press  of  Ceo.  If.  E!!ls,  141  FrankHn  Street,  Boston. 


CONTENTS. 

PAGE 


I.  Introduction,  v-xxiii 

II.  Faith,   1 

III.  God  js  Spirit.    I.,   15 

IV.  God  is  Spirit.    II.,   30 

V.  The  Childhood  of  God,   4.5 

VI.  The  Light  of  God  in  Man,   59 

VII.  The  Grace  of  Jesus  Christ,   74 

VIII.  The  Intellectual  Development  of  Christ,    .    .  89 

IX.  The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind.  I.,  .  102 

X.  The  Fitness  of  Christianity  for  Mankind.  II.,.  117 

XI.  The  Changed  Aspect  of  Christian  Theology,    .  130 

xii.  Biblical  Criticism,   148 

XIII.  The  Atonement,   166 

XIV.  Devotion  to  the  Conventional,   185 

XV.  The  Religion  of  Signs,   200  ' 

XVI.  The  Naturalness  op  God's  Judgments   214 

XVII.  Liberty,   227 

XVIII.  The  Individual  Soul  and  God,   244 

XIX.  Immortality.    L,   258 

XX.  Immortality.    II.,   272 

XXI.  Immortality.    III.,   290 

XXII.  Immortality.    IV.   308 

XXIII.  Letter  to  the  Congregation  of  Bedford  Chapel,  327 

XXIV.  Salt  without  Savor,   331 


INTRODUCTION. 


Stopford  Brooke  *  is  the  greatest  preacher  that  the  Church 
of  England  "has  had  since  Robertson  of  Brighton ;  and  his  with- 
drawal from  the  Chm-ch  is,  in  many  respects,  the  most  signifi- 
cant recent  occurrence  in  the  English  religious  world.  The 
deep  interest  which  his  new  movement  has  awakened  in  Amer- 
ica, where,  both  as  a  religious  thinker  and  a  man  of  letters,  he 
has  almost  as  many  admirers  as  in  England  itself,  has  induced 
the  publisher  to  present  this  collection  of  his  sermons,  selected 
chiefly  from  his  later  volumes,  with  a  view  to  exhibit  his  gen- 
eral doctrinal  position  and  the  prominent  characteristics  of  his 
preaching.  His  recent  withdrawal  from  the  Church  and 
assumption  of  an  independent  position  are  not  to  be  regarded 
as  involving  any  very  recent  radical  change  in  these.    His  teach- 

*  stopford  Augustus  Brooke  was  born  at  Dublin  in  1832,  and  was  educated  at 
Trinity  College,  Dublin,  where  he  gained  the  Downe  prize  and  the  Vice-Chan- 
cellor's prize  for  English  verse.  He  graduated  B.A.  in  185G,  and  M.A.  in  1858. 
He  was  curate  of  St.  Matthew's  Marylebone,  1857-59  ;  curate  of  Kensington,  1860 
-G3 ;  chaplain  to  the  British  Embassy  at  Berlin.  18G3-G5  ;  minister  of  St.  James' 
Chapel,  18CG-75  ;  and  became  minister  of  Bedford  Chapel  in  June,  187G.  He 
was  appointed  a  chaplain  in  ordinary  to  the  Queen  in  1872.  Mr.  Brooke's  pub- 
lished works  are  as  follows  :  Ltfe  and  Letters  of  Frederick  W.  Robertson ;  Ser- 
mons, First  and  Second  Series  ;  Freedom  in  the  Church  of  England;  Christ  in 
Modern  Life;  The  Fight  of  Faith;  Theology  m  the  English  Poets;  A  Primer  of 
English  Literature;  Tlie  Life  and  Works  of  Milton;  and  the  Life  and  Work  of 
Maurice,  a  Memorial  Sermon. 

The  dates  of  the  several  sermons  in  this  volume  have  been  given,  as  afford- 
ing some  sort  of  index  to  Mr.  Brooke's  doctrinal  development,  and  as  explaining, 
in  some  instances,  words  which  iie  would  not  use  to-day.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that 
the  irap(jrtaiit  series  of  doctrinal  sermons  which  Mr.  Brooke  has  been  preaching 
since  his  withdrawal  from  the  Church  may  soon  be  given  to  the  public. 


INTRODUCTION. 


ing  to-day  is  essentially  the  same  as  that  of  five  years  ago. 
The  primary  significance  of  his  new  movement  lies  in  the 
recognition  of  the  inconsistency  of  tliese  religious  views  — 
views  long  entertained  with  greater  or  less  distinctness,  and 
shared  essentially  by  all  the  great  Broad  Church  leaders  — 
with  his  position  as  a  clergyman  of  the  Church  of  England. 

It  was  as  the  biographer  of  Robertson  that  Stopford  Brooke 
first  became  known  to  the  general  public.  His  Life  of  Robert- 
son, one  of  the  mo5t  admirable  works  of  its  kind  in  the  lan- 
guage, exhibited  him  as  a  firm  and  independent  thinker, 
already  well  emancipated  from  conventionalism,  and  impatient 
of  much  in  the  Church's  system,  an  enthusiastic  admirer  of  the 
great  Brighton  preacher  as  a  man,  and  in  hearty  sympathy  with 
his  teachings.  "  As  a  clergyman,"  he  said  in  one  place,  "  Rob- 
ertson brought  distinctly  forward  the  duty  of  fearlessness  in 
speaking.  He  was  not  one  who  held  what  are  called  liberal 
opinions  in  the  study,  but  would  not  bring  them  into  the  pulpit. 
He  did  not  waver  between  truth  to  himself  and  success  in  the 
world.  He  was  offered  advancement  in  the  Church,  if  he  would 
abate  the  strength  of  his  expressions  with  regard  to  the  Sab- 
bath. He  refused  the  proffer  with  sternness.  Far  beyond  all 
the  other  perils  which  beset  the  Church  was,  he  tliought,  this 
peril :  that  men  who  were  set  apart  to  speak  the  truth,  and  to 
live  above  the  world,  should  prefer  ease  and  worldly  honor  to 
conscience,  and  substitute  conventional  opinions  for  eternal 
truths."  "  That  men,"  he  said  again,  "  should,  within  the 
necessary  limits,  follow  out  their  own  character,  and  refuse  to 
submit  themselves  to  the  common  mould,  is  the  foremost  need 
of  the  age  in  which  we  live;  and,  if  the  lesson  which  Robert- 
son's life  teaches  in  this  respect  can  be  received  by  his  brethren, 
he  will  neither  have  acted  nor  taught  in  vain.  Robertson  was 
himself,  and  not  a  fortuitous  concurrence  of  other  men.  He 
possessed  a  true  individuality,  and  retained  the  freedom  of 
action  and  the  diversity  of  feeling  which  men,  not  only  in  the 
Church,  but  in  every  pi-ofession  and  business,  so  miserably  lose, 
when  they  dress  their  minds  in  the  fashion  of  current  opinion, 


INTKODUCTION. 


vii 


and  look  at  the  world,  at  Nature,  and  at  God,  through  the  glass 
whicli  custom  so  assiduously  smokes."  Brooke  was  already  at 
this  time  thoroughly  alive  to  the  difficulty  of  maintaining  true 
individuality  under  a  system  like  that  of  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land. "The  great  disadvantage,"  he  said,  "of  a  Church  like 
ours, —  with  fixed  traditions,  with  a  fixed  system  of  operation, 
with  a  theological  education  which  is  exceedingly  conservative, 
with  a  manner  of  looking  at  general  subjects  from  a  fixed  cler- 
ical point  of  view,  with  a  bias  to  shelter  and  encourage  certain 
definite  modes  of  thinking, — •  is  that  under  its  government  cler- 
gymen tend  to  become  all  of  one  pattern." 

Mr.  Brooke's  first  volume  of  sermons,  published  in  1868, 
showed  still  more  plainly  than  the  Life  of  Robertson  that  he 
did  not  belong  to  the  ordinary  London  pattern,  and  that  he  was 
able,  in  spite  of  the  Church's  system,  to  maintain  his  individu- 
ality and  to  si:)eak  fearlessly.  Four  sermons  from  this  earliest 
volume  of  Mr.  Brooke  are  included  in  the  present  collection, — 
the  sermons  upon  "  The  Naturalness  of  God's  Judgments," 
"The  Intellectual  Development  of  Christ,"  "Devotion  to  the 
Conventional,"  and  "  The  Religion  of  Signs " ;  and  these 
sermons,  while  by  no  means  showing  the  maturity  and  depth 
of  thought  which  we  find  in  the  more  important  parts  of 
Christ  in  Modern  Life,  *  and  in  the  sermons  of  to-day,  show 
the  same  freshness  of  feeling,  the  same  unhackneyed  method, 
and  the  same  general  intellectual  tendencies.  The  volume  at 
once  established  Mr.  Brooke's  reputation  as  an  original  and 
independent  thinker,  and  he  became  from  that  time  a  real 
power  in  London. 

Mr.  Brooke's  second  volume,  Freedom  in  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, appeared  in  1871,  and  consisted  of  a  series  of  sermons 
suggested  by  the  famous  Voysey  Judgment.  The  trial  of 
Mr.  Voysey  involved  a  discussion  of  the  whole  Broad  Church 
position,  and  the  object  of  Mr.  Brooke's  work  was  to  determine 
the  nature  and  extent  of  the  Church's  comprehension.  The 

•  The  sermons  in  the  present  collection  upon  "The  Fitness  of  Cliristianity  for 
Mankind"  and  "Immortality"  are  taken  from  Christ  in  Modern  Life. 


viii 


INTRODUCTION. 


volume  contained  sermons  upon  such  questions  of  controversy 
as  Original  Sin,  the  Atonement,  and  Biblical  Criticism, —  the 
sermons  in  the  present  collection  upon  the  two  latter  subjects 
come  from  this  volume, —  and  it  is  especially  interesting  as 
showing  how  radical  a  man  may  be  and  yet  find  means  to 
reconcile  his  views  with  doctrinal  standards  like  those  of  the 
Church  of  England,  or  at  any  rate  to  justify  to  himself  his 
continuance  within  the  Church.  There  is,  perhaps,  no  better 
popular  defence  of  the  Broad  Church  position,  and  how  inad- 
equate a  defence  this  is  Mr.  Brooke  would  now  be  quick  enough 
to  admit.  It  is  to  be  remembered,  however,  that,  while  this 
volume  showed  Mr.  Brooke  to  be  more  or  less  at  variance  with 
the  Church's  doctrines  upon  almost  every  point  which  he  dis- 
cussed, he  had  not  at  this  time  given  up  the  belief  in  miracles, 
which  he  afterward  did,  and  which  was  the  decisive  cause  of 
his  final  withdrawal  from  the  Church.  This  volume  of  ten 
years  ago  is  not  therefore  to  be  regarded  altogether  as  the 
defence  of  one  holding  the  views  for  which  Mr.  Brooke  now 
stands,  although  it  does  oppose  and  deny  beliefs  which  are  as 
unreservedly  demanded  by  the  Church,  if  they  are  not  as  fun- 
damental to  its  constitution,  as  the  belief  in  miracle  itself. 

The  radical  views  which  Mr.  Brooke  felt  called  upon  to 
assert  with  the  greater  emphasis,  as  the  Voysey  Judgment 
seemed  in  some  respects  to  curtail  that  degree  of  liberty  which 
had  already  been  allowed  in  the  Church,  were  expressed  at  the 
same  time  with  studied  temperance,  and  respect  for  opposing 
opinions.  "  I  trust,"  he  said,  "  that  all  will  recognize  in  these 
sermons  the  deep  desire  I  possess  that  in  the  midst  of  these 
manifold  differences  of  opinion,  the  existence  of  which  I  cher- 
ish as  a  means  of  arriving  at  truth,  we  may  not  lose  our 
liberty  through  fear,  nor  our  reverence  for  truth  through  reck- 
lessness of  opinion  on  the  one  side,  or  through  a  blind  devotion 
to  transient  forms  of  thought  upon  the  other."  He  proceeded 
to  define  his  conception  of  a  National  Church,  maintaining 
that  a  National  Church  was  impossible  and  not  national  at  all 
tmless  it  permitted  within  its  actual  boundaries  every  phase  of 


INTKODT7CTION. 


ix 


religious  thought  possible  to  Englishmen,  within  certain  limits 
■which  demand  belief  in  a  few  cardinal  doctrines, —  doctrines  as 
general  as  in  the  State  the  articles,  for  instance,  of  the  Bill  of 
Rights.  In  a  word,  the  National  Church  must  tolerate  and 
comprehend,  on  an  equal  footing,  religious  views  as  vai'ious  and 
conflicting  as  the  political  views  represented  in  Parliament, 
being,  in  its  sphere,  as  true  a  miniature  as  Parliament  of  the 
national  life.  The  creeds  and  articles  of  the  Church  must 
be  viewed,  like  the  Acts  of  Parliament,  as  entirely  provisional 
and  fluctuating  in  their  nature,  merely  regulative  and  always 
subject  to  revision ;  and  opposition  to  them  must  no  more  be 
construed  as  disloyalty  than  attemjits  to  reform  legislation. 
"Would  the  Church  allow  this  freedom?  If  not,  it  was  not  a 
National  Church,  and  its  disestablishment  was  doomed.  Mr. 
Brooke  then  proceeded  to  show  what  some  of  the  changes  were 
which  criticism  and  science  had  made  necessary  in  theology, 
and  to  defend  the  views  upon  the  principal  questions  of  contro- 
versy for  which  his  party  demanded  tolerance  and  recognition. 
If  such  views  could  not  be  recognized  by  the  Church,  then 
there  was  but  one  course  for  the  liberal  clergy.  "  They  can- 
not," said  Mr.  Brooke,  "  in  the  interests  of  truth,  abide  with  her 
whose  features  are  no  longer  those  of  a  mother."  "  And  if  they 
leave,"  he  said  to  his  people,  "  and  you  agree  with  their  love  of 
liberty,  your  place  is  also  no  longer  in  the  Church.  Truth 
should  be  as  dear  to  you  as  it  is  to  your  ministers.  The  lib- 
eral clergy  ought  to  feel  that  they  have  the  supjjort  of  liberally- 
minded  men  in  their  effort  to  keep  the  Church  open  and  on  a 
level  with  the  knowledge  of  the  day."  For  ten  years  longer, 
Mr.  Brooke  kept  up  the  losing  fight.  Now,  he  has  come  to  see 
clearly  that  his  theory  of  a  National  Church,  fine  as  it  may  be 
in  itself,  is  not  the  theory  upon  which  the  Church  of  England 
really  works,  and  that  he  only  stultified  himself  by  continuing 
to  act  as  though  it  were. 

But  the  jiulpit  of  St.  James'  Chapel  was  no  more  conspicuous 
for  its  liberal  theology  tiian  for  its  innovations  upon  the  ordi- 
nary range  of  pulpit  themes  and  pulpit  methods.    Perhaps  the 


INTRODUCTION. 


primary  endeavor  of  Stopford  Brooke's  preaching,  tliroughont 
his  whole  ministerial  career,  has  been  to  clear  religious  life  and 
thought  of  a  false  traditionalism,  to  oppose  the  tendency  to 
localize  and  j^igeon-hole  religion,  looking  upon  it  as  a  special 
deiiartnieut  of  life,  and  concerned  with  a  particular  histoiy  and 
particular  institutions,  instead  of  embracing  all  history  and 
being  the  informing  spirit  of  all  life  and  all  the  true  elements 
of  society.  C/iri.'<l  in  Modern  Life  is  the  fitting  title  of  his 
principal  volume  of  sermons.    He  would  make 

"  Our  common  daily  life  divine, 
And  every  land  a  Palestine." 

He  would  bring  religion  to  bear  upon  every  department  of  life 
and  thought,  and  bring  every  department  of  thought  into  the 
service  of  religion  ;  would  "  claim,  as  belonging  to  the  province 
of  the  Christian  ministry,  political,  historical,  scientific,  and 
artistic  work  in  their  connection  with  theology,"  and  "  rub  out 
the  sharp  lines  drawn  by  that  false  distinction  of  sacred  and 
profane."*  Every  .sphere  of  man's  thought  and  action,  he  said, 
is  in  idea,  and  ought  to  be  in  fact,  a  channel  through  which 
God  thinks  and  acts;  and  so  there  is  no  subject  which  does  not 
in  the  end  run  up  into  theology,  and  may  not  in  the  end  be 
made  religious.  A  proper  recognition  of  this,  he  believed,  would 
bring  about  important  changes  in  the  methods  and  the  func- 
tion of  the  Church,  and  greatly  increase  its  usefulness  ;  and  it 
was  in  accordance  with  this  that  he  instituted,  at  St.  James' 
Chapel,  courses  of  Sunday  afternoon  lectures,  which  should 

*When  the  .Shakspere  Memorial  was  dedicated  at  Stratford-on-Avon,  two 
years  ago.  it  was  Mr,  Brooke  who  was  invited  to  ^o  down  and  iireach  the  sermon 
appropriate  to  the  occasion  from  the  pul])it  of  the  old  Stratford  church.  "I  sup- 
port with  pleasure."  he  said.  "  any  movement  which  hrinss  Shakspere  more  on 
the  st;ige  in  this  country.  And,  when  I  say  that,  I  mciui  ti)  siipiiort  all  dramatic 
performances  which  represent  human  action  and  eniotinn  with  truth,  which  tell 
or  strive  to  tell  the  real  tale  of  human  life.  The  stage  ought  to  be  one  of  the 
best  means  of  education  in  a  State;  and  it  might  be  much  more  so  than  itlsiu 
England,  if  the  foolish  and  sometimes  odious  stigma  laid  upon  it  by  religious  per- 
sons were  frankly  removed,  and  a  cultivated  demand  made  for  the  production 
of  admirable  plays." 


INTRODUCTION. 


xi 


avoid  as  much  as  possible  the  form  of  sermons,  but  have  some 
direct  bearing  on  religious  tiiought  and  the  conduct  of  life. 
He  invited  well-known  and  competent  men  to  speak  upon  such 
subjects  as  "  The  Inner  Life  of  the  Romish  Church  "  and  "  The 
Relation  of  Music  to  Religion  "  ;  and  he  himself  gave  the  admi- 
rable lectures  upon  Cowper,  Coleridge,  Wordsworth,  and  Burns, 
which  have  since  been  published  under  the  title  of  Tlieolofjy 
in  the  English  Poets.  *  The  experiment  was  very  successful. 
It  was  much  criticised,  as  was  to  be  expected  ;  "  but  the  blame 
of  many  accustomed  to  hear  nothing  but  sermons  from  the 
pulpit,"  said  Mr.  Brooke,  "  has  been  wholly  outweighed  in  my 
mind  by  the  fact  of  the  attendance  of  many  persons  who  were 
before  uninterested  in  religious  subjects  at  all."  He  believed 
that  much  good  might  be  done,  if  similar  efforts  became  gen- 
eral. "  It  would  give  variety  to  clerical  work ;  and  much  knowl- 
edge that  now  remains  only  as  latent  force  among  the  clergy 
miglit  be  made  dynamic,  if  I  may  boi'row  a  term  from  science. 
If  rectors  of  large  chm-ches  would  ask  clergymen  who  know  any 
subject  of  the  day  well  to  lecture  on  its  religious  aspect  in  the 
afternoon,  they  would  please  themselves,  enlighten  their  congre- 
gations, and  fill  their  churches.  And  they  would  assist  the 
cause  of  religion  among  that  large  number  of  persons  who  do 
not  go  to  Church,  and  who  think  that  Christianity  has  nothing 
to  do  with  politics,  art,  literature,  or  science." 

It  would  have  been  impossible  for  ]\Ir.  Brooke  to  have 
chosen  a  theme  better  combining  those  things  which  he  is  best 
qualified  to  tieat  than  that  of  Theolngij  in  the  English  Poets. 
First  a  leligious  thinker,  he  is  next  a  literary  critic;  and  his 
various  essays  upon  Engli.^h  Literature  and  its  great  masters 
have  not  been  surpassed  in  their  good  proportions,  their  just 
estimates,  and  fine  appreciation  of  inner  purpose,  by  anything 
written  in  our  time.  His  little  Primer  of  English.  Literature 
is  a  very  miracle  of  a  book,  reconciling  compression  with 

•A  second  course,  on  Blake.  Shelley,  Keats,  and  Byron,  was  subsequently  de- 
livered: but  this  series  has  not  yet  been  published.  It  is  to  be  hojied  that  the 
larger  public  may  not  much  longer  be  Icept  from  the  enjoyment  of  it. 


xii 


INTRODUCTION. 


living  and  breathing  in  a  way  almost  never  done  before,  and 
managing  in  its  hundred  and  fifty  pages  to  set  Csedmon  and 
Chaucer  and  Elizabeth's  time  and  Anne's  before  us  with  a 
freshness  and  vividness  that  the  big  conipendiums  have  scarcely 
ever  dreamed  of.  Quite  equal,  in  its  way,  is  Mr.  Brooke's 
larger  work  —  still  a  very  small  work  —  upon  Milton.  It 
reveals  the  profoundest  and  most  sympathetic  study  of  Milton, 
and  the  completest  understanding  of  the  Puritan  movement 
and  the  Puritan  mind,  with  which  Mr.  Brooke  himself  really 
has  so  much  in  common.  He  is  equally  at  home  in  every  prov- 
ince and  period  of  English  literature  and  English  histoiy;  and 
Mr.  Green,  the  author  of  the  Hislonj  of  the  English  People,  has 
publicly  acknowledged  the  obligations  which  he  is  under  to 
him  for  assistance  in  the  preparation  of  that  great  work. 

"  The  poets  of  England  ever  since  Cowper,"  saj-s  Mr.  Brooke, 
"  have  been  more  and  more  theological,  till  we  reach  such  men 
as  Tennyson  or  Browning,  whose  poetry  is  overcrowded  with 
theology."  The  study  of  the  theology  of  the  poets  is  especially 
delightful  and  helpful,  because  their  theology  is  the  natural 
growth  of  their  own  hearts,  free  from  the  claims  of  dogma  and 
independent  of  conventional  religious  thought.  In  their  ordi- 
nary life,  indeed,  the  poets  were  subject  to  the  same  influences 
as  other  men.  They  may  have  held  a  distinct  creed  or  con- 
formed to  a  special  sect,  or  they  may  have  expressed  the. 
strongest  denial  of  theological  opinions ;  but  in  their  poetry 
their  imagination  was  freed,  and  they  spoke  truths  which  were 
true  because  they  were  felt.  "  And  the  fact  is  that  in  this 
realm  of  emotion,  where  prejudice  dies,  the  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings of  their  poetry  on  the  subject  of  God  and  Man  are  often 
wholly  different  from  those  expressed  in  their  every-day  life. 
Cowper's  theology  in  his  poetry  soars  beyond  the  narrow  sect  to 
which  he  belonged  into  an  infinitely  wider  universe.  Shelley's 
atheism,  when  the  fire  of  emotion  or  imagination  is  burning 
in  him,  and  when  he  is  floating  on  his  wings  he  knows  not 
whither,  becomes  pantheism,  and  his  hatred  of  Christianity  is 
lost  in  enthusiastic  but  unconscious  statement  of  Christian 
conceptions." 


INTRODUCTION. 


xiii 


Of  the  sixteen  lectures  which  make  up  this  volume  upon 
Theology  in  the  English  Poets,  nine  are  devoted  to  "Words- 
worth, who  holds  as  high  a  place  witii  IMr.  Brooke  as  he  held 
with  Robertson  before  hini.  "In  coming  to  AV^ordsworth,"  he 
says,  "  we  come  to  the  greatest  of  the  English  poets  of  this 
century,  greatest  not  only  as  a  poet,  but  as  a  i^hilosopher.  It 
is  the  mingling  of  profound  thought  and  of  ordered  thought 
with  poetic  sensibility  and  power  (the  power  always  the  master 
of  the  sensibilitj')  which  places  him  in  this  high  position.  He 
does  possess  a  philosophy,  and  its  range  is  wide  as  the  universe. 
He  sings  of  God,  of  Man,  of  Nature,  and,  as  the  result  of  these 
three,  of  Human  Life  ;  and  they  are  all  linked  by  thought  and 
through  feeling  one  to  another,  so  that  the  result  is  a  complete 
whole."  From  what  Mr.  Brooke  has  to  say  of  Wordsworth's 
poetry  of  Nature,  I  quote  a  single  passage,  because  it  is  so  good 
an  expression  of  the  philosophy  which  underlies  so  much  in  his 
own  jJreaching.    Wordsworth  he  says  "  sjieaks  of 

'  The  Being  that  is  in  the  clouds  and  air, 
That  is  in  the  green  leaves  among  the  groves, 
Wliose  dwelling  is  the  light  of  setting  suns. 
And  the  round  ocean,  and  tlie  living  air. 
And  tlie  bhie  skj',  and  in  the  mind  of  man 
A  motion  and  a  spirit,  that  impels 
All  thinking  things,  all  objects  of  all  thought. 
And  rolls  through  all  things.' 

This  Being,  observe,  is  more  than  a  mere  influence.  It  is  a 
conscious  life,  which  realizes  itself  as  a  personality  in  realizing 
itself  within  the  sum  of  all  things.  In  fact,  this  Being,  who  is 
the  life  of  the  universe,  is  the  all-moving  Spirit  of  God,  the 
soul  which  is  the  eternity  of  Thought  in  Nature.*    It  may  be 

*"  A  few  lines  in  the  'Prelude'  express  this  clearly  :  — 
•Hitherto, 

In  progress  through  this  Verse,  niy  mind  hath  looked 

Upon  the  speaking  fare  of  eartli  and  heaven. 

As  her  prime  teacher,  intercourse  with  man 

Established  by  the  Sovereign  Intellect, 

Who  through  that  bodily  image  bath  diffused. 

As  might  appear  to  the  eye  of  fleeting  time, 

A  deathless  spirit.'  " 


xiv 


INTRODUCTION. 


the  fashion  to  call  this  pantheistic ;  but  it  is  the  tnie  and  nec- 
essary pantheism  which  affirms  God  in  all,  and  all  by  him,  but 
which  does  not  affirm  that  this  All  includes  the  whole  of  God. 
Wordsworth's  feeling  of  personality  was  so  strong  that  he 
would  probably  have  said  that  the  personality  of  God  in  refer- 
ence to  Nature  consisted  in  God's  consciousness  of  himself  at 
every  moment  of  time,  in  every  part  as  well  as  in  the  whole  of 
the  universe.  But,  as  this  is  a  metaphysical  and  not  a  poetic 
thought,  and  as  Wordsworth  wanted  a  thought  which  he  could 
use  poetically,  he  transferred  this  idea  of  God  realizing  his  per- 
sonality in  the  whole  of  the  universe  to  an  actu^al  person,  whom 
he  creates,  to  a  Being  whom  he  terms  Nature.  And  hence 
there  grew  up  in  his  mind  the  thought  of  one  personal,  spiritual 
Life,  which  had  infinitely  subdivided  itself  through  all  the  forms 
of  the  outward  world,  which  could  realize  an  undivided  life  at 
any  moment,  but  which  also  lived  a  distinct  life  in  every  part. 
It  became  possible  then  for  him  to  have  communication  with 
any  one  manifestation  of  that  Life,  in  a  tree  or  a  rock  or  a 
cloud,  to  separate  in  thought  the  characteristics  of  any  one 
form  of  it  from  another,  or,  omitting  the  consideration  of  the 
parts,  to  think  of  or  communicate  with  the  whole,  to  realize  the 
one  spiritual  life  that  conditioned  itself  in  all  as  a  Person  with 
whom  he  could  speak,  and  from  whom  he  could  receive  impulse 
or  warning  or  affection.  And,  when  this  was  done,  when 
Nature  seemed  one  Life,  then  the  necessary  spirituality  of  the 
thought  made  him  lose  consciousness  of  the  material  forms 
under  which  this  Life  appeared,  and  that  condition  of  mind 
arose  in  which  Nature  was  luisubstautialized  in  thought." 

It  is  chiefly  English  thought,  English  poetry  and  liistoi'y,  of 
■which  Mr.  Brooke  has  written  ;  and  it  is  from  English  masters 
that  his  culture  has  apparently  been  most  immediately  derived. 
And  yet  his  philosophy  is  essentially  the  German  philosophy ; 
and  those  very  elements  in  Wordsworth  with  which  his  mind 
has  so  strong  an  affinity  are  the  elements  which  Wordsworth 
owed  chiefly  to  German  influences,  or  whicli,  at  least,  are  of  the 
distinctively  German  character.     Stopford  Brooke  is  a  Trau- 


INTRODUCTION. 


XV 


scendentalist,  whose  English  feet  are  set  very  firmly  on  the 
ground,  combining  a  lofty  Idealism  with  shrewd  good  sense,  in 
something  the  same  manner  which  Me  see  in  Emerson.  All  of 
the  great  Broad  Churchmen  have  been  deeply  influenced  by  the 
German  thinkers.  Robertson,  it  will  be  remembered,  was  the 
English  translator  of  Lessing's  Educalioii  of  the  Human  Race. 
Just  what  the  direction  of  j\lr.  Brooke's  studies  was  during 
his  Berlin  days  we  do  not  know,  but  the  influence  of  the  great 
Germans  is  consi^icuous  through  all  liis  later  work.  Of  the 
philosophers  proper,  Ficlite  affected  him  most ;  and  lie  has 
expressly  acknowledged  his  obligations  to  him.  "  There  is 
within  Fichte's  philosophy,"  he  says,  "teaching  both  on  life, 
morality,  and  religion,  which  makes  him  more  worth  the  read- 
ing of  persons  troubled  by  the  great  spiritual  questions  than 
any  other  of  the  German  philosophers." 

Stopford  Brooke  is  first  and  foremost  a  Christian,  more 
pm'ely  and  strictly  and  emphatically  a  Christian  than  almost 
any  other  great  religious  teacher  of  our  time.  The  ideas  which 
Christ  first  made  clearly  manifest  he  believes  to  be  capable  of 
endless  expansion,  and  to  be  the  ideas  most  necessary  for  the 
salvation  and  elevation  of  humanity.  "  If  we  look  long  and 
earnestly  enough,"  he  says,  "we  shall  find  in  them  (not  read 
into  them,  as  some  say)  the  explanation  and  solution,  not  only 
of  our  religious,  but  even  of  our  political  and  social  problems." 
"I  believe,  and  rest  all  I  say  upon  the  truth,  as  I  think,  that  in 
Christ  was  Life,  and  that  this  Life,  in  the  thoughts  and  acts 
which  flowed  from  it,  was  and  is  and  always  will  be  the  Light 
of  the  race  of  ]Man." 

The  name  of  Christ  is  connected  with  two  religions  or  sys- 
tems of  thought, —  the  one  the  teaching  of  Christ  himself  and 
the  religion  which  every  man  may  have  in  common  with  him, 
the  other  a  scheme  of  thought  about  Christ  and  a  religion  which 
assumes  that  he  was  something  other  than  man,  and  worships 
him.  Lessing  used  to  distinguish  the  two,  for  lack  of  exact 
terms,  as  "  The  Religion  of  Christ"  and  "  The  Christian  Relig- 


xvi 


INTRODUCTION. 


ion."  It  is  the  "  Religion  of  Christ "  for  which  Stopford 
Brooke  stands ;  and  it  is  to  this,  of  course,  that  the  terms  Chris- 
tian and  Christianity,  in  a  strict  and  scientific  sense,  belong. 
Only  the  great  prestige  and  power  of  the  opposing  system  have 
made  possible  the  miserable  controversy  which  has  been 
waged  ujjon  this  point,  and  wliich  mere  reference  to  our  general 
usage  at  once  makes  an  end  of.  Platonism  is  not  a  theory 
about  Plato.  The  true  Platonist  is  he  who  accepts  the  philos- 
opher's cardinal  principles  as  cardinal  in  the  constitution  of 
his  own  thought.  He  is  not  to  be  tested  by  what  was  acci- 
dental in  the  philosoj^her's  opinion,  or  merely  incidental  to  the 
general  conditions  of  his  culture, —  e.g.,  the  cosmogony  of  the 
Pkcedon, — but  only  by  the  essential  principles  of  his  philoso- 
phy ;  and,  in  determining  what  the  philosopher  himself  was,  he 
is  only  bound  not  to  be  inconsistent  with  these  principles.  He 
may  not  hold,  for  instance,  that  Plato  himself  was  simply  a  for- 
tuitous concurrence  of  atoms  ;  for  this  were  opposed  to  the  first 
principle  of  tlie  Platonic  pliilosophy.  And  the  true  Christian 
may  not  deny  Christ's  oneness  with  God ;  for  the  oneness  of 
humanity,  in  its  idea  and  essence,  with  the  divine,  the  fact 
that  God  is  our  Father,  that  we  are  the  offspring  of  God,  "  be- 
gotten, not  made,"  was  the  first  principle  of  Christ's  philosophy 
and  of  his  consciousness.  So  much  it  is  indeed  necessary  for 
the  true  Christian  to  hold  aJiout  Christ,  in  order  to  consistency 
with  the  fundamental  principle  of  Christ's  religion,— that  he 
was  one  with  God. 

But  this  oneness  with  God  is  not  something  peculiar  to 
Christ  alone,  however  superior  his  consciousness  of  it  may  have 
been,  however  transcendent  the  power  witli  which  he  illus- 
trated and  enforced  the  truth  in  his  life  and  teaching,  and  how- 
ever unique  his  position  as  the  great  mediator  of  the  truth  to 
the  race.  Christ  is  simply  the  first-born  among  many  brethren, 
realizing  what  is  true  in  essence  of  every  man,  and  what  every 
man  may  realize, —  lighted  by  the  Light  which  lighteth  every 
man  that  cometh  into  the  world.  Mr.  Bi-ooke  has  brought  out 
this  point  very  strongly  in  the  sermon  upon  "  The  Light  of  God 


INTRODUCTION. 


xvii 


in  Man,"  included  in  the  present  volume,  and  in  the  sermons 
upon  "  The  Central  Truth  of  Christianity,"  in  Christ  in  Mod- 
ern Life.  The  central  truth  of  Christianity  and  the  distinc- 
tive doctrine  of  Christianity  is  to  him  the  doctrine  of  a  divine 
humanity.  The  first  important  doctrinal  sermon  which  he 
preached  after  his  withdrawal  from  the  Church  was  upon  the 
Incarnation.  "  The  whole  truth,"  he  said,  "  contained  in  tlie 
doctrine  of  the  Incarnation  is  becoming  less  and  less  a  spiritual 
power  in  the  minds  of  men,  because  of  the  miraculous  which 
the  Church  has  connected  with  it.  The  Orthodox  lose,  in  the 
prominence  they  give  to  the  miraculous,  much  of  the  spiritual 
power  of  the  doctrine,  and  certainly  the  greater  part  of  its  uni- 
versality. Unless  the  doctrine  be  freed  from  the  miracle, 
now  linked  to  it,  it  will,  as  the  belief  in  miracle  dies  out,  die 
out  itself,  or  lose  its  power.  It  will,  of  course,  rise  again ;  for 
humanity  cannot  get  on  without  faith  in  God's  incarnation  in 
man.  It  is  at  the  very  root  and  is  tlie  life-blood  of  all  religion; 
but  its  real  foundation  is  deeper  than  miracle,  and  it  will  rest 
only  the  more  firmly  when  the  belief  in  miracle  has  perished. 
The  spirit  within  man  which  thirsts  after  relationship  with 
God  does  not  need  the  miracle.  The  truth  of  God's  union  with 
man  is  clear  to  us  without  it, —  clear  and  more  comforting  and 
infinitely  more  universal.  If  God  be  the  Father  of  men,  as 
Christ  declared,  then  it  is  absolutely  natural  that  he  should 
enter  into  men  and  abide  with  them  and  in  them,  and  through 
them  reveal  himself  to  other  men.  Of  this  continual  incarna- 
tion, Christ  is  the  highest  and  the  purest  example,  unique  as 
yet  upon  earth.  But  from  the  very  beginning,  in  the  first 
breath  that  man  drew  as  an  intelligent  spirit  in  this  world,  God 
has  been  incarnating  himself  in  man.  This  truth  has  been 
found  in  all  religions.  It  forms  now  the  foremost  truth  of 
Christianity.  '  God  and  man  are  one,'  said  Christ.  '  The 
Father  lives  in  me,  speaks  in  me,  works  in  me.  I  am  nothing 
save  by  union  witla  him.'  He  spoke  that,  not  in  a  character 
inlierently  unlike  ours,  but  in  the  name  and  iu  the  voice  of 
humanity,  to  which  he  belonged.    What  he  was  then,  we  are  to 


xviii 


INTRODUCTION. 


be.  It  is  tlie  normal  end  of  human  nature  to  be  the  dwelling- 
place  of  God,  to  be  interwoven  with  divinity,  to  have  itself 
taken  into  God,  and  God  incarnate  iu  it." 

This  religion  of  Chri.st,  viewing  man  under  the  forms  of  eter- 
nity, and  giving  hnn  the  immortality  of  God,  invests  his  nature 
and  his  de.stiny  with  a  dignity  and  a  grandeur  which  nothing 
else  can  do,  thereby  imposing  duties  and  responsibilities  as 
nothing  else  can  do,  and  thus  having  a  power  and  a  fitness  for 
mankind  which  are  universal  and  eternal.*  Mv.  Brooke 
opposes  the  ideas  of  Christ  to  the  ideas  of  Conite,  to  Secularism 
and  whatever  attempts  to  do  the  work  of  religion  in  the  world 
to-day,  not  as  excluding  them,  or  as  antagonistic  to  their  real 
motives,  but  as  genuinely  including  these  as  factors  in  itself*. 
Of  Comte's  "  Religion  of  Humanity,"  he  says,  "  1  am  unable  to 
see  how  it  differs,  so  far  as  it  asserts  a  principle,  from  the  great 
Christian  idea.  Everything  it  says  about  Humanity  and  our 
duties  to  Humanity  seems  to  me  to  be  implicitly  contained  in 
Christ's  teaching,  and  to  be  no  more  than  an  expansion  of  the 
original  Christian  idea  of  a  divine  Man  in  whom  all  the  race  is 
contained,  and  w  ho  is  ideally  the  race."  Mr.  Brooke  does  not 
join  in  the  cry  which  has  been  raised  against  the  religion  of 
Positivism,  but  commends  its  careful  study,  and  recognizes  the 
force  with  ■which  it  has  brought  home  to  us  many  great  concep- 
tions which  the  false  system  of  the  Church  had  brought  us  into 
danger  of  forgetting.  It  would  be  untrue  in  a  Christian 
teacher,  he  says,  to  abuse  a  system  which  has  so  strongly 
emphasized  the  duty  of  self-sacrifice  among  men  aud  among 
nations;  "but  it  would  be  equally  untrue,"  he  continues,  "  if  I 
did  not  say  that  the  refusal  to  consider  the  existence  of  a  per- 
sonal God  and  the  immortality  of  man  will,  in  the  end,  make 
that  religion  die  of  starvation." 

"  Historical  Chri.stianity,"  says  Emerson,  "  has  dwelt  with 

♦"Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  Avhich  is  in  heaven  is  perfect  "  is  a 
command  valid  only  just  as  it  is  an  assurance  that  our  own  nature  is  divine  So 
far  as  that  is  true,  are  our  obligations  infinite.  Goethe  said,  -It  we  would  im- 
prove a  man.  it  were  well  to  kt  Inm  believe  tliat  we  already  think  him  that 
which  we  would  have  him  to  be." 


INTRODUCTION. 


xix 


noxious  exaggeration  about  the  p('r:<on  of  Jesus."*  And  tliis  is 
true,  if  he  means  by  it,  as  lie  does,  that  wliich  was  acci- 
dental and  particular  about  the  person  of  Jesus,  as  opposed  to 
the  essential  truth  with  which  his  inner,  real  personality  was 
identified.  In  the  seu.se  intended,  it  is  true,  as  he  says,  that  the 
soul  knows  no  persons.  But  all  this  is  true  only  to  him  who  is 
able  to  see  its  truth  rightly,  and  that  is  in  seeing  also  the  sig- 
nificance of  that  personal  element,  which  is  so  es.sential  in 
religion  and  in  that  whole  department  of  life  into  which  the 
emotions  enter, —  in  everything,  almost,  beyond  abstract  meta- 
physics. Goethe  has  taught  us  that  the  secret  of  good  art  lies 
in  the  recognition  of  proper  limitations,  in  clearly  fixing 
bounds,  and  not  attempting  too  much.  And  a  similar  jirinci- 
ple  of  limitation  governs  much  in  the  emotional  life,  and  can- 
not be  ignored  without  disaster.  We  cannot  love  John  Smith's 
mother  as  we  love  our  own,  even  if  we  admit  with  our  whole 
head  that  she  is  as  true  a  woman ;  and  we  feel  toward  him 
who  has  taught  us  truth  or  done  us  good  as  w'e  cannot  feel 
toward  the  mediator  of  equal  good  to  others.  Few  of  us  can 
be  stirred  by  the  story  of  jMorgarten  or  iMarston  Moor  as  by 
the  story  of  Lexington  or  Gettysburg,  although  we  niay  be 
quick  to  allow  that  the  Swiss  patriots  and  the  Puritans  were  as 
heroic  and  as  right  as  our  own  fathers  and  brothers.  This 
principle  of  limitation,  truly  apprehended  and  operating  natu- 
rally, does  not  narrow,  but  expands  the  circle  of  our  interests  and 

•We  are  reminded  of  tlie  lines  wliicli  Lessiiig  puts  into  tim  Mulioinetan 
Sittah's  moutli,  in  his  yalliaii :  — 

■'  You  do  not  know,  yon  will  not  know  the  Christians. 
Cliristianity,  not  manhood,  is  their  i)ri<Ie, 
E'en  that  which,  from  their  founder  down,  hath  spiced 
Their  superstition  with  humanity, 
"fis  not  for  its  humanity  lliey  love  it. 
No;  but  because  Christ  taught,  Christ  practised  it. 
Happy  for  tliem  he  was  so  good  a  man ! 
Happy  for  tliem  that  they  can  trust  his  virtue! 
His  virtue '.'  Not  his  virtue,  but  his  name. 
They  say,  shall  spread  abroad,  and  shall  devour 
And  put  to  sliamc  the  names  of  all  jjood  men. 
The  name,  the  name,  is  all  their  pride." 


XX 


INTEODUCTIOK. 


our  affections, —  by  which  I  mean  that  he  who  feels  intensely 
the  good  and  true  nearest  him  is  only  helped  by  the  strong 
feeling  to  a  genuine  interest  in  things  more  remote  and  more 
comprehensive.  New  England,  perhaps,  of  all  parts  of  our 
American  Union,  has  ever  been  most  jealous  for  State  rights, 
yet  she  has  been  the  stoutest  assertor  of  national  sovereignty; 
and  the  great  international  men  who  have  risen  up  everywhere 
since  Kant  wrote  his  E:erual  Peace  —  Cobden,  Mazzini,  Sum- 
ner —  have  all  been  men  conspicuous  for  their  fine  love  of 
country  and  of  race.  The  "  cosmopolitan  "  of  the  Boulevard 
des  Ilaliens  is  not  the  international  man, —  really  not  a  man 
at  all.  In  general,  finally,  be  it  said  that,  while  it  is  true 
enough  that  truth  is  universal,  always  and  everywhere  truth, 
it  is  also  true  that  persons  alone  are  the  depositaries  and  me- 
diators of  truth.  Left  to  ourselves,  knowing  no  persons,  we 
should  liave  a  very  inconsiderable  stock  of  "  universal  truths." 
And  the  words  and  work  of  every  great  master  get  no  adequate 
interpretation  save  through  our  knowledge  of  the  master's  self. 
To  refer  to  Goethe  again,  by  way  of  illustration, —  who  knows 
Tasxo  or  Faust  or  Wilhelm  Meister,  who  does  not  first  know 
Goethe  V 

The  relation  of  all  this  to  religion  and  to  Stopford  Brooke's 
preaching  of  Christianity  is  plain  enough.  If  Christianity  were 
no  better  abstractly  than  other  religions,  but  only  one  of  many 
equals,  it  is  the  religion  identified  with  the  stream  of  civilization 
to  which  we  belong,  the  mother  of  us  all ;  and  the  truths  which 
it  utters  speak  to  our  hearts  with  an  eloquence  and  force  that 
no  strange  lips  could  give  them.  For  the  great  masses  of  men, 
who  rise  to  abstract  ideas  slowly,  this  objectifying  of  the  truth 
and  connecting  it  with  persons  is  as  necessary  as  the  appeal  to 
Lexington  instead  of  Morgarten  is  expedient  and  projier.  For 
whom  of  us,  indeed,  is  this  not  necessary  or  helpful  ?  It  is 
well  for  a  race  to  have  its  Bible  and  to  have  its  Christ,  and  to 
take  them  into  its  heart,  even  at  the  expense  of  much  prejudice 
and  superstition,  and  even  though  there  were  Bibles  many  and 
Christs  many,  of  equal  rank.    The  power  of  common  traditions 


INTRODUCTION. 


xxi 


and  associations,  of  allusions  and  appeals  understood  from  the 
top  to  the  bottom  of  society,  of  a  religious  poetry  and  prophecy 
and  story  which  speak  to  all  alike,  is  a  wholesome  and  an  inspir- 
ing power.  It  is  a  power  wliich  can  be  sustained  only  by  prop- 
erly  respecting  the  principle  of  limitation,  whose  operation 
reaches  to  every  spliere  of  life ;  and  the  man  of  culture  must 
often  find  that,  through  some  disjiroportion  in  his  development, 
the  intensity  of  the  feeling  which  he  used  to  have  for  this  good 
or  that  has  not  freely  or  satisfyingly  transferred  itself  to  the 
many  goods  and  many  truths  which  his  broadening  knowledge 
masters.  It  is  a  question  whether  the  man  is  to  be  envied  who 
listens  with  equal  emotion  «to  the  Psalms  of  David  and  those 
Vedic  Hymns  which  sing  the  same  truths,  or  who  lumps  the 
apothegms  of  Confucius  and  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  any 
more  than  the  American  is  to  be  envied  to  whom  Boston  Com- 
mon and  the  Mississippi  mean  no  more  than  the  Yang-tse- 
Kiang  and  the  gardens  of  Bombay.  And  it  is  a  question 
whether  the  religious  teacher  to  whom  all  particular  religions 
may  have  come  to  have  ecj^ual  value  would,  not  do  well  to 
illustrate  and  enforce  his  teaching  primarily  through  that  relig- 
ion which  lies  nearest  to  the  hearts  of  the  people,  so  the  religion 
in  itself  be  good  and  true. 

But  this  would  be  at  best  but  temporary  and  a  makeshift. 
The  Bible  once  really  ranked  with  the  Yedas  and  the  Koran, 
and  Christ  viewed  as  not  inherently  superior  to  Confucius,  and 
Christianity  as  a  religion  would  decay,  or  rather  be  subsumed 
under  something  larger.  The  patronage  of  the  cultured  teacher 
and  his  consideration  for  the  necessities  or  weaknesses  of  the 
masses  would  not  long  count  for  much ;  and,  large  as  the  com- 
mendable element  in  it  might  be,  it  would  have  from  the  start, 
like  all  patronage,  a  certain  taint  of  insincerity.  Mr.  Karl 
Hillebrand,  whose  recognition  of  the  important  functions  of 
the  principle  of  limitation  is  so  strong,  in  the  midst  of  his  own 
large  culture,  as  to  lead  him  to  put  in  a  word  even  in  behalf  of 
prejudices, —  "good,  solid  prejudices,"  he  calls  them, —  shows 
how  the  German  patriotism  of  the  last  dozen  years  has  had 


xxii 


INTRODUCTION. 


little  robust  vigor,  because  it  was  not  born  naturally,  but  was 
the  fruit  of  reflection,  and  is  conscious  and  intentional.  "  It 
has  a  tincture  of  jiedantry,"  he  says,  "because  it  has  been  made 
by  scholars  and  literary  men.  It  has  sprung  up  from  a  feeling 
of  want  of  patriotism,  and  resembles  the  i-eligion  of  the  German 
romanticists,  who  had  all  been  free-thinkers,  and  resolved  one 
fine  day  to  become  believers,  because  belief  was  a  necessary 
basis  of  all  poetical  excellence." 

Stopford  Brooke's  Christianity  is  not  of  this  manufactured 
or  prudent  sort.  Here  is  a  genuine  man,  a  man  who  thinks 
and  is  no  Athanasian  parrot,  whose  religion  is  no  indifferent 
eclecticism,  but  who  does  believe  w'^th  all  his  heart  that  Christ 
stands  so  far  above  other  masters  that  he  stands  alone ;  that 
his  religion,  like  Homer's  poetry,  and  in  a  sense  far  deeper,  is 
as  fresh  to-day  as  at  the  beginning  ;  and  that  in  the  spread  of 
his  spirit  and  the  appropriation  of  his  ideas  in  their  true  i^ur- 
port,  the  liberal  ajiplication  of  his  mind  to  the  shifting  condi- 
tions of  society,  lie  the  surest  progress,  the  highest  happiness, 
and  the  best  hope  of  mankind.  It  is  no  thing  of  names  with 
him.  He  will  call  Christian  Christian  only  as  he  calls  Homer 
Homer, —  simply  insisting  that  the  greatest  of  all  masters  shall 
not  be  precisely  the  one  to  whom  men  may  refuse  to  pay  the 
grateful  tribute  which  the  Kantian  or  the  Wesleyan  pays  to  his 
secondary  master  naturally  and  unchallenged.  But  the  truth, 
not  the  name,  is  the  thing  with  Stopford  Brooke.  Quick  to 
recognize  the  good  in  every  system  of  thought  and  every  ideal 
of  life,  he  criticises  them  only  when  and  in  so  far  as  they  would 
drive  out  or  obscure  what  seem  to  him  the  larger  truth  and 
better  life.  The  largest  truth  and  the  best  life  seem  to  him  the 
truth  which  Christ  taught  and  the  life  Chri.st  lived.  He  would 
not  deny  the  abstract  jiossibility  of  the  coming  of  a  teacher  who 
should  teach  Christ's  truth  in  a  still  loftier  form  than  Christ 
taught  it;  the  truth  itself, —  that  man  is  one  with  God, —  than 
this  there  cannot  be  any  loftier  truth.  He  would  not  deny  that 
one  might  come  whose  life  should  be  as  true  as  Christ's  to  the 
divine  Idea,  and  be,  perchance,  in  some  sort,  a  larger  life ;  but 


INTEODUCTION. 


xxiii 


he  would  say  that  speculation  on  the  point  were  altogether  vain 
and  profitless,  a  waste  of  time.  If  that  teacher  and  tliat  life 
come,  if  indeed  the  forms  of  Christ's  teaching  grow  obsolete,  it 
will  be  onlj"  as  the  "Santa  ]Maria"has  grown  obsolete,  whicli 
still  carried  Columbus;  and  it  would  still  be  true  tluit  the  com- 
ing of  Christ  is,  as  Carlyle  has  said  so  strongly,  "  tiie  most  im- 
portant event  that  has  occurred  or  can  occur  in  the  annals  of 
mankind."  Christ's  words,  however,  have  not  yet  grown  ob- 
solete. They  are  the  freshest  things,  to-day,  in  this  old  world ; 
the  fullest  of  life  and  of  power.  Surely,  no  work  is  nobler  than 
a  work  like  Stopford  Brooke's,  of  so  bringing  the  ideas  and 
ideals  of  Christ,  freed  from  the  superstitions  of  the  Church 
system, —  "immaculate  conception,"  post  mortem  materializa- 
tion, and  what  not, —  which,  at  some  stage  or  other  in  the 
process,  protective  doubtless  and  sustaining,  now  only  hide 
and  choke  and  falsify, —  so  bringing  them  to  bear  upon  our 
modern  life  as  to  turn  the  world,  the  flesh  and  the  devil  of  us, 
the  ennui  and  cynicism  and  greed  and  calculation,  to  shame 
and  honest  w.ork,  to  reverence  and  vision,  compassion  and  a 
rational  socialism. 

E.  D.  M. 


FAITH. 


1870. 

"And  the  disciples  said  unto  him,  Lord,  increase  our  faith." — 
Luke  xvii.,  5. 

Every  one  has  said  how  unintelligible  the  world  is, 
and  how  heavy  and  M  eary  is  the  burden  of  this  unintelli- 
gibility.  But  its  weariness  and  its  weight  are  the  spurs 
of  our  curiosity,  and  our  curiosity  is  the  parent  of  our 
activity. .  Were  not  the  world  unintelligible,  we  should 
not  have  been  intelligent.  It  is  the  ceaseless  array  of 
physical  problems,  needing  solution,  which  has  trained 
the  scientific  intellect  of  mankind.  It  is  the  ceaseless 
array  of  mental  and  moral  problems  which  has  devel- 
oped the  thoughtfulness  of  the  race.  It  is  the  ceaseless 
array  of  problems  about  God  and  his  relation  to  mankind 
which  has  trained  the  S])iritual  life  of  men ;  and  it  is 
these  last  that  come  more  home  to  us  than  all  the  others. 
We  hand  over  the  solution  of  physical  and  metaphysical 
difficulties  to  special  bands  of  scholars ;  and,  on  the 
whole,  we  accejit  the  answers  they  give,  where  sufficient 
proof  has  been  alleged,  or  we  take  no  trouble  about 
them.  But  the  spiritual  difficulties  touch  the  heart  and 
life  of  almost  every  man  or  woman.  They  claim  that 
each  one  of  us  should  look  into  them  for  ourselves,  and 


2 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


find  each  of  us  our  own  answer.  The  great  problem  is 
presented  to  us,  and  we  hear  a  voice  which  says,  Find 
my  answer,  or  be  devoured  by  me. 

It  is  the  old  story  -of  the  Sphinx.  The  Greek,  in 
his  grave,  sad  way  of  looking  upon  life,  beheld  it  as  a 
strufjjrle  against  the  unintelligible.  Something  was  to 
be  discovered  ;  and,  if  discovered,  the  fortunate  one  was 
master  for  a  time  of  Life.  But,  if  nothing  were  discov- 
ered, Life,  as  it  went  on  inexorably,  slew  him ;  and  he 
died,  and  the  Greek  had  no  certainty  that  he  should  live 
in  the  future  by  the  mastery  of  the  prolilem.  Even  he 
who  found  a  portion  of  the  answer,  and  could  make  his 
will  the  victor  and  not  the  victini  of  Life,  was  doomed 
to  be  overcome  in  the  end  by  the  undiscovered  secret, 
and  CEdipus  falls  into  hideous  ruin.  Fate  has  its  own 
way  with  him.  Yet  even  in  that  story  w^e  catch  a  glimpse 
of  a  higher  truth,  when  the  tale  is  finished  by  an  inspired 
poet.  The  blind,  old  man  finds  at  last  relief.  The  Furies 
change  their  countenance  to  him,  for  he  understands  at 
last  the  meaning  of  their  inexorable  pursuit.  He  under- 
stands, and  dies  in  peace.  We  too,  I  believe,  one  and 
all  of  us,  are  fated  to  understand  all  things  at  last.  We 
shall  see  face  to  face,  knowing  God  as  we  are  known  by 
him.  But  it  W'ill  be  a  far  longer  business  for  some  of  us 
than  we  think  or  than  we  shall  like. 

There  are  some  for  whom  it  is  not  long.  It  is  plain 
that  as  the  genius  of  some  philosophers  is  almost  intui- 
tive with  regard  to  tlie  secrets  of  nature,  so  there  are 
other  men  whose  feeling  is  intuitive  with  regard  to  tlie 
secrets  of  spiritual  life.  They  know  W'ithout  proof :  they 
need  no  authority  and  no  evidence.  They  have  no 
trouble  of  heart,  but  walk  with  God  as  friend  with 


FAITH. 


3 


friend.  But  no  one  can  tell  how  far  previous  education 
before  they  were  born  into  this  world  may  have  given 
them  that  power. 

On  the  other  hand,  just  as  children,  and  afterwards 
men,  learn  the  sanctions  of  j^hysical  laws  through  the 
commission  of  a  series  of  mistakes,  for  each  of  which 
they  suffer  punishment, —  pursued  relentlessly  by  the 
Furies  till,  their  secret  being  found,  they  become  the 
Eunienides, —  so  in  the  spiritual  world  also  there  are 
many  who  can  only  reach  good  through  having  known 
evil  and  overcome  it,  can  only  attain  to  the  knowledge 
of  truths  through  having  found  out  by  sad  experience 
the  uselessness  and  harm  of  false  knowledge  of  them. 
We  are  pursued,  as  long  as  we  are  wrong  in  our  ideas 
of  God,  by  the  scourge  of  restlessness,  or  despair,  or 
anger.  Not  till  we  find  the  secret  is  there  any  pause. 
To  discover  a  portion  of  it  is  not  enough.  We  must 
pay  the  glorious  penalty  of  our  immortality ;  and  that 
penalty  is  often  renewed  doubt  and  spiritual  darkness. 
Often,  we  think  we  know  all  we  need  to  know :  Ave  say 
we  have  reached  the  goal,  our  faith  is  secure,  we  have 
nothing  more  to  conquer.  It  is  the  very  moment  when 
we  are  surprised  by  a  new  aspect  of  a  truth  and  feel 
ourselves  ignorant,  only  half-way,  with  faith  and  courage 
tottering  and  troubled.  God,  in  what  seems  to  our  wea- 
ried eyes  cruelty,  drives  us  from  our  rest.  A  new  diffi- 
culty rises  before  us,  which  Ave  mi^st  soh-e  or  die,  till  at 
last,  step  by  step,  it  may  be  here,  it  may  be  long  here- 
after, we  enter  the  A^enerable  grove,  and  knoAV  all ;  and 
our  rest  is  perfect,  for  our  comprehension  is  perfect. 

It  is  the  common  objection  that  this  is  a  long  and 
needlessly  harsh  way  of  making  us  know  him,  when 


4 


TAITH  AXD  FREEDOM. 


God  might  do  it  so  much  sooner,  if  he  woiUd ;  and  the 
greater  part  of  our  Avork  this  morning  ^y\ll  centre  round 
that  objection. 

In  answer  to  it,  there  is  first  this, — •  that  a  good  deal 
has  been  found  out  ah-eady,  if  people  woukl  take  the 
trouble  of  looking  at  it.  The  scientific  man  enters  into 
the  knowledge  of  the  past,  and  finds  a  certain  number 
of  things  which  have  been  already  discoA-ered.  He  has 
not  to  rediscover  these  things.  And  the  sjjirit  newly 
born  into  a  s^jiritual  life  enters  into  the  possession  of  the 
spiritual  exjterience  of  the  past.  There  are  a  certain 
number  of  statements  about  God  and  his  relation  to 
men  which  have  slowly,  during  the  spiritual  history 
of  the  world,  taken  their  places  as  foundation-stones. 
All  sorts  of  buildings  have  been  raised  on  these  founda- 
tions,—  creeds,  schemes  of  redemption,  a  multitude  of 
sects  and  churches ;  but,  however  various  the  buildings, 
there  are  a  few  foundation-stones  always  identical,  and 
which  one  may  now  accept  as  axioms.  Some  insist  on 
proving  their  existence ;  and,  if  they  must,  they  must ; 
but  they  lose  a  good  deal  of  time,  and  it  is  not  God's 
fault  if  men  are  fantastic. 

Secondly,  I  do  not  know  if,  as  the  objection  says,  God 
could  make  us  know  all  truth  at  once,  being  such  as  we 
are.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  tlie  sudden  revelation 
of  truth,  for  which  Ave  Avere  not  jirepared,  Avould  either 
throAV  us  into  despair,  or  the  truth  itself  Avould  seem  to 
us  a  lie.  ReA^elation  must  be  ])roportioned  to  the  capac- 
ity of  the  organ  that  receives  it.  Trutli  is,  in  full,  before 
Man  ;  but  only  that  part  of  it  reaches  him  AA^hich  his  spir- 
itual eye  can  take  in.  The  rest,  at  present,  Avould  strike 
him  blind.    Your  present  ideas  of  God  seem  to  you  true ; 


FAITH. 


5 


but  what  would  you  have  thouglit  of  them  years  ago, 
and  Avhat  will  you  think  of  them  ten  years  hence? 

But  you  reply,  Why  were  we  not  made  capable  of 
receiving  the  truth  at  once  ?  Why  are  we  so  imperfect 
as  to  need  all  this  slow  training  and  all  this  suffering? 
A  loving  God  ought  to  have  saved  us  that.  Well,  that 
is  pushing  remonstrance  pretty  far.  And  I  cannot  feel 
at  all  with  that  remonstrance ;  for  it  demands  of  course, 
as  I  have  often  said,  that  we  should  cease  to  be  men  and 
women,  and  be  other  beings  altogether,  who  have  no 
trouble,  no  doubt,  no  struggle,  no  pain,  no  knowledge  of 
evil,  no  progress  of  the  kind  we  know,  nothing  of  all 
that  mingled  success  and  failure,  and  all  the  feelings 
connected  with  it,  which  makes  life  so  distressing,  so 
dramatic,  and  often  so  delightful.  I  confess  I  should 
regret  if  that  which  we  call  human  nature  were  taken 
out  of  the  universe,  and  were  replaced  by  what  is  sup- 
])Osed  to  be  the  angelic  nature.  The  interest  of  the 
whole  thing  is  so  enchaining  that  I  do  not  think  one 
would  care  to  be  immortal,  if  everybody  were  good  all 
in  a  moment,  and  knew  everything  at  once ;  and  I  do 
not  think  the  goodness  would  be  worth  much,  or  the 
knowledge  either.  Who  cares  for  things  purchased  by 
no  trouble?  And  what  use  are  things,  unless  we  care 
for  them?  I  do  not  want  to  get  rid  of  difficulties  or 
mysteries,  if  the  price  be,  as  it  must  be,  the  destruction 
of  the  element  of  humanity  in  the  universe. 

And  now,  supposing  you  allow  that  that  would  be  a 
misfortune,  in  what  other  way  —  human  nature  being  as 
it  is  —  is  it  possible  that  God  should  act  toward  it  ?  Is 
there  any  other  process  conceivable  of  making  a  weak 
thing  individually  strong  than  by  exercising  what  is 


6 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


feeble  in  it  against  a  difficulty?  Is  it  possible  to  get 
wiser  in  any  other  way  than  by  training  the  faculties, 
mental  or  spiritual,  in  the  investigation  of  that  which  is 
doubtful  and  hidden  ? 

In  this  matter,  there  is  only  one  rule  for  all  the  spheres 
of  human  thought  and  action,  for  tlie  life  of  animals  and 
plants.  All  their  progress  is  born  out  of  antagonism: 
all  their  force,  and  therefore  their  amount  of  life,  may 
be  expressed  in  terms  of  the  resistance  they  encounter. 
Therefore,  considering  the  universality  and  inexorable- 
ness  of  this  law,  it  is  somewhat  j)itiable  to  hear  the  moan 
which  so  many  persons  make  when  doubt  begins  to  dis- 
tress and  darkness  falls  upon  their  sjairitual  life. 

When  a  long  series  of  experiments  made  by  a  natural 
philosopher  entirel}'  fails,  or  when  an  unlooked-for  result 
turns  in  the  course  of  the  experiments,  and  seems  to 
reverse  all  the  theories  he  has  held  to  before,  he  does  not 
wail  and  cry  on  account  of  the  failure.  He  begins  again. 
Nor  is  he  in  despair  at  having  to  reconsider  everything. 
On  the  contrary,  he  is  excited  to  the  highest  pitch. 
Something  new,  some  wide  2)rinciple,  is  hidden  in  the 
failure  or  in  the  new  result ;  and  he  cannot  rest  till  he 
has  unearthed  it.  For  he  has  faith  in  nature  answering 
his  call  and  rewarding  his  toil.  He  does  not  sufl'ei-,  for 
he  knows  that  he  is  on  tlie  way  to  higher  knowledge. 
It  is  true  that  the  disappointment  which  tlie  intellect 
suffers  is  not  so  ])ainful  as  that  of  the  spirit,  nor  does  the 
overthroAV  of  a  scientific  theory  upturn  and  convidse  life 
in  the  same  way  as  the  overthrow  of  a  long-clierislied 
method  of  faith.  But  the  reason  of  this  is  that  we  are 
still  subject  to  the  bondage  of  tliinking  that  God  is  angry 
with  us  on  account  of  doubt,  and  that  he  will  condemn 


FAITH. 


7 


us  because  we  are  forced  to  reconsider  our  old  system 
of  belief.  We  do  not  believe  in  God  as  the  i)liiloso]iher 
believes  in  nature.  We  look  upon  liim  as  capricious, 
passionate,  and  unfair.  We  have  no  conception  as  yet 
of  him  as  a  Father  who  often  deliberately  places  us  face 
to  face  with  the  unintelligil)le.  We  think  we  have  lost 
him,  when  we  have  lost  our  past  conception  of  him, 
when  our  spiritual  rest  is  gone,  and  our  light.  But,  if 
"we  trusted  in  tliis  Fatherhood,  and  understood  that  our 
education  is  his  care,  and  that  it  ^^'ill  take  centuries  to 
complete  it,  we  should  say  to  ourselves,  when  darkness 
falls  on  our  soul  and  all  our  old  views  become  vague  and 
difficulties  rise  on  every  hand,  exactly  what  the  ])hiloso- 
pher  says  to  himself:  "I  have  found  out  Avhere  my 
theory  was  either  wrong  or  inadequate,  and  I  have  now 
a  new  interest  in  life.  Let  me,  taking  my  past  error 
itself  as  my  starting-point,  discoA'er  what  is  true.  God 
will  answer  me,  if  I  work,  as  nature  answei's  the  philoso- 
jiher."  And  the  moment  the  mystery  comes,  and  doubt 
invades  the  heart,  we  shall  say  to  ourselves :  "  Now  I 
see  that  God  my  Father  is  plainly  at  work  upon  me.  He 
is  going  to  give  me  more  to  find  out.  I  am  again  con- 
sciously under  his  training;  and,  if  I  am  true  and  faith- 
ful, and  do  not  tire  of  patient  investigation,  and  keep 
my  heart  open  by  prayer,  and  my  intellect  clear  from 
exaggeration,  I  shall  step  out  of  this  darkness  into  clearer 
light,  know  more  of  him  tliau  I  have  kno«'n  before,  and 
suffer  the  ennobling  pain  and  the  ennobling  pleasure  of  a 
new  revelation." 

But  you  say  that  it  is  of  God  himself  that  you  doubt. 
He  seems  to  you  to  be  at  variance  with  the  moral  feeling 
of  your  own  soul.    That  is  because  your  idea  of  God  is 


8 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


now  lower  and  more  inadequate  than  you  need  have. 
You  have  accepted  certain  theological  accounts  of  his 
nature  in  the  past,  and  they  still  cling  to  you,  or,  having 
lost  them,  you  have  not  replaced  them  by  others.  "And 
this  is  God,"  you  say.  "  I  cannot  believe  in  him."  Well, 
that  is  God  telling  you  that  t/ntt  is  not  himself  as  he 
is  to  you.  Others  are  satisfied  with  that  past  concep- 
tion: they  can  live  on  it  spiritually,  and  it  will  not  do  to 
give  them  a  higher  view  yet.  But,  now  that  you  have 
been  told  that  there  is  a  higher  aspect  in  which  he  may 
be  seen,  why  are  you  angry  with  him,  Avhy  are  you 
despairing?  Why  do  you  not  try  to  find  out  if  there 
be  no  other  view  of  him  which  will  harmonize  the  belief 
of  the  soul  with  the  reason  of  the  man  ?  As  plainly  as 
one  spirit  can  speak  to  another,  he  is  telling  you  that 
there  is  a  higher  knowledge  of  him  that  you  have  as  yet 
to  gain. 

Dimly,  it  dawns  upon  you  that  this  very  distress  and 
darkness  is  his  work ;  and,  if  so,  that  there  is  only  one 
explanation  of  it :  that  there  is  a  Father  who  is  educating 
you  from  point  to  point,  and  that  he  has  put  you  into 
darkness,  because  the  liglit  you  had  was  not  enough  for 
your  spiritual  growth ;  because,  having  done  all  it  could 
for  your  education,  the  time  has  now  come  when  you 
need  a  brighter  light,  a  nobler  idea  of  God  and  life. 

You  think  you  are  to  get  that  at  once.  That  would 
break  the  law  of  the  iiniverse.  New  light  can  only  be 
got  by  a  fight  against  darkness.  The  soul  cannot  be 
revolutionized  except  through  battle.  The  elements  of 
a  new  life  can  only  be  assimilated  through  resistance. 
Otherwise,  they  would  not  be  your  own.  They  are 
woven  with  the  fibres  of  the  soul  by  daily  struggle. 


FAITH. 


9 


Without  stnig'glo,  they  "would  be  mere  surface  things, 
which  a  breath  of  temptation  woukl  blow  away. 

The  darkness  does  not  vanish  all  at  once,  nor  the  light 
flash  upon  us :  God  understands  our  nature  better  than 
to  make  that  error.  But,  when  in  our  contest  with  the 
gloom  and  in  our  patient  feeling  after  God,  there  comes 
first  a  faint  glimmering  of  the  truth  which  we  shall  j)os- 
sess,  we  rejoice  and  make  it  our  owm,  and  go  on  in  its 
strength.  Then  a  faint  thread  of  rays  steals  in,  then 
there  is  the  morning  star,  then  the  cold  flush  of  dawn, 
then  warmer  and  warmer  hues, —  the  heaven  of  our  life, 
as  we  force  our  way  onward,  lighting  up  Avith  new 
colors, —  and  then,  suddenly,  the  new  revelation  leaps 
like  the  sun  into  the  air,  and  our  whole  being  is  trans- 
figured. The  struggle  has  made  us  understand  the  light, 
step  by  stej)  we  hnve  appropriated  it,  and  that  darkness 
is  done  with  forever.  Other  doubt,  other  darkness,  wnll 
succeed ;  but  so  far  the  curse  of  life  has  been  conquered, 
and  turned  into  a  blessing.  The  Lord  God  has  made 
our  darkness  to  be  light. 

Now,  I  say  that  on  the  hyjjothesis  that  we  have  a 
Father  who  cares  for  our  spirit,  and  wlio  is  educating 
it  to  perfection,  all  this  process  is  ex2)li('able,  and  exj^li- 
cable  in  such  a  way  that  it  confirms  the  love  of  God. 
And,  if  the  theory  explain  the  facts,  is  it  not  probable 
that  the  theory  is  true?  And  if  such  a  probabilitv 
exist,  and  stir  us  to  higher  life,  and  give  us  strength, 
what  should  be  our  prayer, —  what  but  this?  Lord, 
increase  our  faith. 

The  last  answer  I  have  to  make  to  the  objection  that 
God's  way  of  dealing  with  us  is  unfair  and  unloving  is 
that  it  is  plain  that  the  process,  if  we  go  through  it  in 


10 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


a  reasonably  iioblo  manner,  ennobles  u;^.  And  all  that 
is  required  from  us  is  no  vague  feeling,  no  exalted  spir- 
itual passion,  but  just  that  ■which  is  required  from  every 
man  in  contact  with  any  difficulty. 

A  jihilosophcr  meets  with  a  new  fact  for  which  he  can 
give  no  reason.  It  strikes  at  the  very  root  of  his  systein, 
or  it  is  irreconcilable  with  it  at  jjresent.  It  tells  him  to 
go  back  and  begin  again,  or  at  least  it  opens  out  before 
him  a  A  ista  of  work  to  which  he  sees  no  end.  Suppose 
bis  disaiipointment  o-\'erwhelms  hhn,  su]ii)ose  the  shock 
makes  him  desjiair,  and,  falling  away  from  his  faith  that 
everything  is  resolvable  into  the  order  of  things,  he 
strikes  work,  what  follows  ?  Idleness  and  its  curse,  the 
sense  of  intellectual  degradation,  a  wasted  life.  His  trial 
has  not  ennobled  him  ;  but  every  one  knows  that,  had  he 
had  faith  in  liimself  and  in  nature,  his  work  upon  the 
difficulty  would  have  personally  ennobled  him  ;  that,  had 
he  said  to  himself,  when  suddenly  this  mysterious  fact 
emerged  in  the  midst  of  the  known,  when  this  inexpli- 
cable thing  traversed  the  very  tlieory  which  all  the  world 
accepted,  "  This  means  not  so  nuich  that  we  are  all 
Avrong,  but  that  there  is  a  higher  right  to  be  found  out : 
this  inexplicable  thing  tells  me  —  joyful  me,  counted 
worthy  to  find  it!  —  that  I  am  on  the  track  of  a  new  dis- 
covery," he  would  either  have  made  the  discovery,  or 
at  least  hewn  out  the  way  partly  to  it,  shown  the  point 
m  the  distance  where  the  new  star  among  the  truths  of 
science  would  be  found,  when  the  work  had  all  l)een 
done. 

He  may  be  thus  disgraced  or  ennobled  according  as  lie 
meets  his  difficulties.  It  is  the  same  in  common  human 
life.    We  liave  it  in  our  i)Ower,  for  a  time,  to  ruin  life, 


FAITH. 


11 


to  turn  its  greatest  ])Ossibilities  into  curses.  When,  op- 
posed by  difficulties,  we  gi\e  ourselves  up  into  the  hands 
of  unmanliness,  fear,  and  hiziness,  it  is  indeed  a  miser- 
able jjiece  of  "work  we  make  of  life.  We  have  it  also  in 
our  jjower,  Avhen  we  are  faithful,  active,  joyous,  and 
courageous,  to  live  one  after  another  half  a  dozen  lives 
in  our  space  of  sixty  years,  and  to  grow  more  Avise  and 
more  penetrative  and  more  self-commanding  every  year. 

It  is  i)rccisely  the  same  in  the  difficulties  and  darkness 
of  that  which  we  call  the  spiritual  life.  They  are  to 
show  us  where  Ave  are  weak,  they  are  to  suggest  to  us 
new  discoveries  on  the  nature  of  God,  they  are  to  give 
the  soul  something  to  do,  to  Avake  it  up  from  lethargy,  to 
develop  its  peculiar  j^owers,  to  make  it  feel  that  God  is 
inexhaustible,  and  that,  let  it  dive  into  the  ocean  of  his 
nature  deeper  than  eA^er  plummet  sounded,  it  never  can 
learn  satiety  nor  know  content.  And  are  Ave  to  be  in- 
dignant Avith  the  process  which  leads  us  to  these  things 
because  it  gives  us  pain,  and  to  deny  God's  love  because 
he  Avill  not  let  us  rest  in  half-educated  imperfection? 
That  is  a  thought  unAvorthy  of  our  high  destiny.  A 
Greek  Avould  have  been  ashamed  of  it:  a  Christian  Eng- 
lishman should  liate  it  as  descradins:. 

In  the  struggle  mentioned  above  as  the  struggle  of  the 
Thinker,  the  intellect  of  man  is  rendered  noble  and  its 
poAvers  strengthened.  In  the  spiritual  struggles  of  life, 
the  spirit  of  man  is  rendered  noble  and  its  jjOAvers  devel- 
oped. The  strenLi'tliciiiiig  of  spiritual  poM'ors  l)y  exer- 
cise has  been  often  <l\\  (_'Iton;  but  this  strife  with  doubt 
and  darkness  is  especially  ennobling,  because  it  gives 
us  slowly  the  possession  of  the  nol)lest  ideas.  In  our 
darkest  moments,  Ave  never  lose  the  conviction  that  the 


12 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


idea  of  God  is  inexpressibly  noble,  and,  as  revealed  in 
Christ,  inexpressibly  tender  as  well  as  noble,  even  a\  hen 
we  liave  ceased  for  tlie  time  to  believe  in  him.  Is  it 
really  ])Ossible  that  any  one  can  compare  it,  as  an  idea 
alone,  to  that  of  the  rigid  circle  of  constant  force,  or  to 
that  of  humanity  as  an  organism?  It  alone  touches  all 
that  is  in  us,  and  develops  all, —  intellect,  heart,  con- 
science, imagination,  and  spirit.  Pure  thought,  juirc 
love,  perfect  righteousness,  infinite  beauty,  producing  in- 
finite varieties  of  itself  in  thought  and  feeling  and  form; 
the  all-wise,  all-sustaining,  educating  Father  of  all  the 
spirits  who  have  flowed  from  him,  clothed  even  in  the 
weakest  words, —  this  idea  makes  one's  being  thrill  witli 
a  strange,  exalting  jtower.  "And  I  heard  as  it  were  the 
voice  of  a  trum])et  speaking  to  me,  and  saying.  Come 
up  hither."  That  saying  expresses  its  impulse  on  our 
life.  Linked  Avith  it  are  other  thoughts, — -the  immor- 
tality of  Man  in  God,  the  salvation  from  evil  of  all 
mankind  in  him,  the  redemption  of  htiman  nature  com- 
pleted, self-sacrifice  as  the  central  principle  of  all  life  in 
God  and  in  Man.  These  are  but  a  few:  but,  as  they 
grow  in  us,  they  ennoble  existence ;  they  make  of  this 
earth  an  august  tem])le ;  they  burn  in  us  like  fire,  con- 
smning  evil,  kindling  good ;  and  any  process,  however 
long,  which  leads  us  to  their  lofty  mountain  range,  is 
worth  going  through  Avith  faithfid  j^^itience.  Let  us 
therefore  pray :  O  Lord  our  God,  guide  us !  Deepen 
our  jifitience,  warm  our  aspiration.  Above  all,  increase 
our  faith. 

Ah  me !  you  reply,  I  may  be  becoming  nobler  as  I  go 
through  life,  though  it  be  by  doubt  and  darkness;  but 
I  am  in  exquisite  pain,  and  I  want  happiness.  I  want 
peace,  ease.    I  do  not  want  to  be  tortured. 


FAITH. 


13 


"VVell,  then,  you  had  better  surrender  and  sink  down 
into  your  happiness.  Only  beware,  for  it  will  become  a 
worse  pain  than  tliat  you  suffer  now.  The  only  way  in 
this  world  to  get  peace  is  to  make  it  out  of  pain.  And, 
after  all,  did  you  come  into  this  world  to  find  happiness? 
Was  it  for  your  own  sake  alone  that  you  were  created 
into  the  midst  of  this  vast  humanity?  What  are  you 
tliat  you  should  pay  so  much  attention  to  yourself,  and 
lose  in  that  attention  the  thought  of  others? 

You  are  not  here  to  find  happiness  directly  as  tlie  first 
thing.  You  are  here  to  discover  truth ;  and  tlie  way  is 
dark,  and  leads  to  the  Cross  before  it  finds  the  Resurrec- 
tion. You  are  here  to  consecrate  your  life  to  the  discov- 
ery of  a  portion  of  the  Divine  Law,  to  practise  it,  and  to 
diffuse  the  knowledge  and  love  of  it  among  your  breth- 
ren ;  and  it  is  a  work  which  will  call  upon  you  to  go 
through  much  darkness,  and  to  make  sacrifices  which 
will  seem  at  first  to  rend  your  heart  in  sunder.  You  are 
here  to  help  to  build  up  the  Temple  of  Humanity,  to  give 
your  life  for  the  welfare  of  the  race  ;  and  it  is  not  jiossi- 
blc  to  do  that  work  and  at  first  to  have  an  easy  life  of  it. 

Ilajijiiness,  indeed  !  What  business  ha-\  e  we  yet  with 
hapjiiness  ?  We  must  win  it  before  we  wear  it.  Only 
toil  can  give  us  the  2:)Ower  of  enjoying.  And  God  knows 
this,  and  he  jnits  us  through  this  long  and  painful  })roc- 
ess.  He  saves  us ;  but  we  must  work  out  our  own  salva^ 
tion.  He  gives  light ;  but  we  must  conquer  darkness. 
And,  if  we  want  the  lazy  sweets  of  life,  the  ease  undig- 
nified by  any  thought,  the  life  untroubled  by  any  dis- 
turbijig  doubt,  why,  we  may  have  it  by  throwing  our- 
selves out  of  the  sj^here  of  God's  training,  and  siiiking 
down  into  our  native  mud.  The  ha])piness  of  Circe's 
sty,  the  happiness  of  being  unconscious  of  our  own  deg- 


14 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


radation,  and  loving  it, —  "  Upon  thy  hvWy  slialt  tlion  go, 
and  dust  shalt  thou  eat  all  the  days  of  thy  life,"  ■ —  that 
is  not  the  glorious  end  a  child  of  God  desires.  God  will 
not  permit  that  "vve  have  happiness  at  the  expense  of 
spiritual  greatness. 

But,  if  ^ye  will  have  something  better  far, —  a  grave 
nobility  of  spirit ;  a  life  thrilled  through  and  through 
with  august  ideas  bravely  won ;  a  vast  and  2>ractical  love 
for  man,  iu  which  self  will  be  forgotten;  an  aspiration 
toward  truth  untirin<x  as  tlie  eaoie's  flight,  and  with  his 
sun-fixed  eye ;  the  enthusiasm  of  one  who  loves  with 
j^assion  God  and  man ;  the  temperate  reasonableness 
which  rules  enthusiasm,  so  as  to  direct  it  to  its  work 
with  wisdom, —  then  there  is  something  higher  than  our 
miserable  happiness.  It  is  tlic  awful  blessedness  of  life 
with  God,  the  knowledge  tlint  Ave  are  growing  up  into 
better  things,  the  certain  ho])e  of  a  life  of  eternal  right- 
eousness and  love  and  joy,  the  stern  delight  of  duty 
done. 

Steru  lawgiver  !  yet  thou  dost  wear 
The  Godhead's  most  l)eniguaiit  grace; 

Nor  know  we  any  thing  more  fair 
Thau  is  tlie  smile  upou  tliy  face. 

Flowers  laugh  before  thee  ou  their  beds, 

And  fragrance  in  thy  footing  treads  : 

Thou  dost  preserve  the  stars  from  wrong, 
And  tlie  immortal  Heavens,  through  thee,  are  fresh  and  strong. 

They  are  lines  whose  very  sound  rings  with  the  trium- 
phant strength  of  the  life  which  we  shall  possess  at  last, 
the  sti-ength  of  conquest  over  all  darkness,  sin,  and  death, 
—  the  life  which  never  fails  in  energy  and  joy,  for  it 
never  fails  in  love.  To  win  it  and  to  wear  it  well,  there 
is  but  one  prayer:  it  is  the  prayer  of  the  disciisles, — 
"  Lord,  increase  our  faith." 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT.-I. 

1873. 

"God  is  a  spirit;  and  thej^  that  worship  him  must  worship  liim  in 
spirit  and  in  truth."  —  John  iv.,  24. 

The  summer  months  had  gone  by,  and  autumn  liad 
advanced  to  seed-time,  wlien  Jesus,  journeying  to  Gali- 
lee, stayed  to  rest  near  Samaria,  in  the  plain  of  Sichem. 
It  was  about  mid-day,  and  he  sat  by  the  well  of  Jacob. 
While  he  waited  for  his  disciples,  whom  he  had  sent 
away  to  buy  bread,  a  woman  came  from  the  neighboring 
city  of  Samaria  to  draw  water.  He  asked  her  to  give 
him  drink,  and  began  to  talk  with  her  about  the  well 
and  the  water.  It  was  one  of  those  opportunities  that 
he  never  neglected  of  awaking  spiritiial  curiosity,  of 
stirring  into  life  the  seeds  of  God  that  he  believed  were 
in  every  human  soul.  Seizing,  as  was  his  custom,  on 
that  Avhich  lay  before  their  eyes  as  the  means  of  teach- 
ing, he  spoke  of  a  water  of  which  whosoever  drank 
should  never  thirst  again.  It  was  the  water  of  the 
divine  Life  which  he  had  come  to  give:  it  would 
quench  the  thirst  of  the  soul,  and  it  Avould  become,  in 
all  wlio  received  it,  a  living  well,  springing  up  for  ever 
from  one  life  to  another  throughout  eternity. 

On  that  portion  of  the  conversation  I  do  not  speak, 


16  FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 

but  on  tlie  other  portion  into  wliich  it  divided  itself. 
"How  is  it,"  said  the  Avoman,  "that  thou,  being  a  Jew, 
askest  drink  of  me,  who  am  a  woman  of  Samaria?"  She 
expressed  in  tliat  ])]n-ase  a  real  wonder,  a  wonder  shared 
in  afterward  by  the  disciples;  and,  if  we  conceive  what 
some  time  ago  would  have  been  thought  if  any  well- 
knoAvn  religious  leader  was  seen  in  earnest  conversation 
with  a  strong  partisan  of  Atheism,  m'c  should  have  an 
idea  of  the  w;iy  in  which  the  woman  and  the  disciples 
marvelled. 

It  was  a  strange  scene  on  which  the  sun  looked  down : 
a  Jewish  prophet  of  the  lineage  of  David,  for  whom  a 
poor  Samaritan  woman  M'as  drawing  water;  and  between 
them  that  r.'ipid  interchange  of  thought  that  belongs,  one 
might  say,  to  equals  and  to  friends.  It  was  as  if  there 
was  nothing  to  divide  them,  as  if  the  jirejudices  of  ages 
had  in  a  moment  rolled  aAvay :  it  was  the  overthrow  of  an 
exclusive  caste,  it  was  the  prophecy  of  a  new  era  of  relig- 
ious breadth  and  charity.  The  scene  itself  was  a  j^ara- 
ble  of  the  idea  of  the  si)eech  that  closed  it.  "Woman, 
I  say  to  you,  the  hour  cometh,"  etc.  The  scene  that 
followed  it  when  the  disci})les  came  back  and  stood  in  an 
astonishment  tliat  had  l)oth  doubt  and  blame  in  it  is  a 
parable  of  that  whicli  has  ever  hajjpened  since,  though 
less  and  less  as  Christian  charity  has  influenced  the 
world,  when  any  man  has  dared  to  exiiress,  either  in 
act  or  speech,  the  moaning  of  my  text. 

It  is  that  meaning  that  we  have  to  discuss  to-day. 

The  woman  laid  down  the  question  fairly:  "You  say 
Jerusalem  is  right,  we  Gerizim.  Our  fathers  worshipped 
in  this  mountain,  but  you  say  that  in  Jerusalem  men 
ouglit  to  worship."    We  have  both  ancestral  usage  to 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


17 


hiillow  and  coiifinn  our  faith,  and  ■who  shall  decide  tliat 
I  am  wrong  or  you  right?  No  conclusion  can  be  come 
to:  our  sej)aration  is  undying. 

It  is  more  or  less  the  condition  of  the  -world  no-^v  on 
the  subject  of  religion.  Jerusalem  condemns  Gerizim, 
and  Gerizim  mocks  at  Jerusalem,  and  the  bigotry  and 
uncharitableness  of  both  are  about  equal.  There  is 
nothing  to  choose  between  the  Cliurch  or  the  Tliei.sts  or 
the  Moralists  who  deny  all  religion.  A  holy  horror  is 
met  by  bitter  scorn ;  and  one  and  all  are  equally  inca- 
pable of  putting  themselves  into  the  jjlace  of  the  others, 
of  any  of  that  imaginative  power  which  realizes  the 
difficulties,  the  tempt.ations,  the  long-established  circum- 
stances, the  traditional  emotions  and  ideas  of  the  others 
—  or  of  any  of  that  loving-kindness  whicli  would  say, 
"  There  must  be  good  in  my  opjjonents'  opinions,  or  they 
would  not  care  to  go  on  contending  for  them:  there 
must  be  earnestness  for  truth,  or  they  would  not  fight 
so  steadily."  On  the  contrary,  it  is  quite  common  for 
all  parties  to  assume  that  their  opponents  are  hypocrites 
or  liars,  or,  at  the  best,  foolish  and  blind.  Those  who 
profess  a  lofty  tolerance  and  liberty,  Avhose  one  attack 
is  an  attack  on  bigotry,  are  often  the  most  bigoted  of  all. 
Listen  to  one  who  professes  morality  as  against  religion: 
it  is  Samaritan  against  Jew  over  again.  Listen  to  the 
Atheist  as  against  the  believer:  it  is  Sadducee  as  against 
Pharisee  over  again. 

The  whole  thing  is  childish,  like  two  boys  in  the 
streets  calling  one  another  names.  And  it  is  inexpres- 
sibly distressing.  How  can  the  world  move  rapidly  on- 
ward, as  long  as  we  indulge  in  a  sjjirit  of  hating  one 
another,  which  makes  ourselves  hateful,  as  long  as  we 


18 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


have  none  of  that  h)ving-khi(ln('ss  to  oacli  other  which 
"will  render  it  possible  for  us  to  unite  in  action  for  the 
good  of  all  and  the  discovery  of  truth  ?  There  is  but 
little  liojte  of  any  swift  progress,  till  we  can  all  say: 
"The  time  now  is  that  neither  in  this  mountain,  nor 
yet  at  Jerusalem,  shall  men  worsliip  the  Father.  God  is 
spirit;  and  they  that  Avorship  him  must  worship  him  in 
spirit  and  in  truth." 

NeA'erthelcss,  it  is  impossible  not  to  see  that  a  good 
deal  of  this  contention  is  unavoidable,  and  that  it  has 
its  good  side.  In  this  world,  we  cannot  yet  have 
peace,  Avithout  previous  war  in  matters  pertaining  to 
truth.  Every  truth  or  form  of  truth  calls  up  its  oppo- 
nent falsehood.  Every  good  insisted  on  evokes  its  own 
special  adversary,  and  war  is  inevitable.  I  came  not, 
said  Christ,  to  send  ]»eace  on  earth,  but  a  sword.  Sec- 
ondly, truth  is  seldom,  if  ever,  unmixed.  Those  who 
declare  it  best  hold  along  with  it  the  elements  of 
imtruth, —  evil  in  the  midst  of  their  good.  And  it  is 
not  unfrequently  the  case  that  those  who  are  for  the 
most  Y>avt  in  the  Avrong,  and  Avho  fight  against  the 
truth,  have  with  them  the  very  elements  of  truth  that 
are  wanting  in  the  other  side, —  the  good  which  will, 
when  it  is  added  to  the  better  side,  make  its  revelation 
entirely  good. 

You  may  be  pretty  sure  tliat  is  really  the  case,  when 
the  worst  side  lasts  a  long  time.  Jf  vill  last,  till  its 
share  of  truth  is  assimilated.  And  the  really  wise  thing 
for  any  one  to  do  who  knows  that  on  the  whole  he  is 
on  the  right  side  in  any  great  controversy  of  truth,  and 
who  finds  that  the  other  side  still  hold  their  own  fairly, 
is  to  say  to  himself :  "  It  is  impossible  (since  God  is  true, 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


19 


and  directing  tlic  course  of  the  world)  that  my  oppo- 
nents should  last  so  long,  unless  they  have  some  truth 
in  their  error;  and  it  is  my  business  to  find  that  out. 
When  I  do,  I  shall  not  only  complete  my  own  side,  but 
I  shall  also  overcome  their  error,  and  probably  in  such  a 
way  as  to  bring  them  over  to  the  wliole  truth.  It  is 
perhaps  not  tlieir  love  of  error  that  keejis  them  my 
enemies,  l)ut,  first,  the  natural  clinging  tliey  have  to  the 
truth  in  their  error,  and,  secondly,  the  incompleteness 
of  my  trutli,  because  I  do  not  as  yet  j^ossess  the  portion 
of  truth  they  hold." 

In  both  cases,  it  is  jdain  that  war  is  necessary,  the 
world  lieing  such  as  it  is.  False  things  have  to  be 
proved  to  be  false,  evil  things  have  to  be  gone  through 
and  exhausted,  and  the  battle  must  be  set  in  array. 
But  it  is  also  plain  that  a  higher  ground  is  possible  to 
some  persons,  where  the  only  thing  that  is  im])ortant  is 
the  truth,  where  '  all  the  minor  things  involved  in  the 
battle, —  questions  of  place,  such  as  Jerusidem  and  Gcri- 
zim,  of  the  church  or  the  meeting-house,  questions  of 
mere  opinion,  of  form,  of  symbols,  of  one  religion  as 
against  another, —  things  which  give  all  its  violence  to 
the  battle  because  they  involve  personal  questions, —  are 
neither  seen  nor  felt  as  of  any  vital  importance. 

There  are  those  who,  partly  by  nature  and  partly 
through  experience,  stand  on  this  higher  ground.  It 
is  the  ground  on  wliich  Christ  stood,  when  he  said, 
"  Woman,  the  time  coincth  when  neither  in  this  moun- 
tain nor  yet  at  Jerusalem  will  ye  Avorship  tlie  Father." 
And  the  duty  of  those  who  stand  with  him,  and  by  his 
strength  ujton  it,  is  not  to  blame  too  severely  the  intol- 
erance of  the  warriors  wlio  fight  on  the  lower  ground, 


20 


FAITH  AN"D  FREEDOM. 


as  is  too  much  tlie  custom.  Harsh  bLunc  only  rivets 
them  in  their  intolerance.  Kor  should  you  forget  that 
you  need  gi-cat  tact  in  dealuig  -witli  others,  if  you  stand 
on  this  higher  ground.  To  live  on  it  destroys  a  part 
of  your  influence.  Your  freedom  seems  indifference  to 
truth  to  the  j^eople  LeloM'.  They  turn  on  you,  and  say : 
"  You  blame  our  impetuosity.  It  is  because  you  do  not 
care  for  truth  as  much  as  we  do."  For  their  intoler- 
ance, till  they  can  rise  out  of  it,  will  seem  to  them  to 
be  zeal  for  truth.  Your  duty,  on  the  contrary,  is  to 
search  out  the  truth,  wherever  it  may  be,  on  every  side, 
to  praise  it,  to  dwell  on  it  again  and  again,  till  you 
isolate  it,  as  it  were,  from  its  surromiding  error,  and 
make  men  conscious  of  it, —  to  reiterate,  There  you 
are  right,"  till  men's  minds  are  fixed  on  the  points  of 
truth.  Once  that  is  done,  the  error  will  drop  away 
from  them  slowly,  but  certainly ;  and  the  contest  itself 
will  also  slowly  change  its  spirit.  It  will,  since  the 
truths  contended  for  are  now  more  clearly  seen,  become 
less  selfish,  less  mixed  up  with  desire  for  personal  vic- 
tory, less  eager  for  worldly  honor  and  reward,  and  more 
eager  for  the  victory  of  truth  itself.  And,  wlien  that 
takes  i^lace,  it  will  soon  become  more  courteous,  less 
one-sided,  less  intolerant ;  and  it  cannot  help  becoming 
so.  That  ought  to  be  your  Avork.  Tliat  is  the  true  way 
to  reduce  bigotry.  Al)ove  all,  if  you  have  been  lifted 
into  the  calmer  region,  and  feel  that  this  or  that  out- 
ward ojiinion  or  transient  form  matters  little,  if  only 
God  and  man  be  loved,  it  is  your  duty  ncA-er  to  let  any 
tem])tation  hurry  you  into  the  evils  you  see  in  those 
below  your  region.  Sliame,  shame,  on  any  one  who, 
living  with  Christ  in  the  S2>here  of  jiermanent  and  invio- 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


21 


lable  tmith,  sliall  allow  liiiiiself,  through  any  tcmjicr,  to 
be  betrayed  into  violent  or  scornful  condemnation! 

Yet,  for  all  that,  there  must  be  on  your  part  no  iml- 
teriiig  with  triith,  no  indifference  to  it.  Looking  down 
on  the  two  sides  that  contend  against  one  another  on 
any  one  subject  that  involves  a  trutli,  you  must  be  able 
—  however  nuu  h  you  may  see  true  things  in  both  par- 
ties—  to  say  which  side  has  the  most  right,  which  side 
it  is  right  to  join,  Avhich  side  the  progress  of  the  world 
demands  should  be  supported.  One  must  be  preferable 
to  the  other, —  Jerusalem  or  Samaria, —  though  there 
may  be  a  higher  and  noliler  side  than  either.  It  is  here 
that  23<irt  of  Christ's  answer  to  the  woman  comes  in: 
"Ye  worship  ye  know  not  what.  We  know  what  we 
worship,  for  salvation  is  of  the  Jews." 

The  answer  was  given  with  regard  to  the  existing 
state  of  things.  It  conveyed  no  absolute  truth,  but 
only  a  relative  truth.  It  did  not  intend  to  say  that  the 
existing  -worship  at  Jerusalem  was  the  best  possible,  or 
that  it  was  even  specially  good.  It  only  said  that  it 
was  distinctly  better  than  the  worship  of  Samaria. 

It  is  well  to  observe  in  this  the  delightful  reverence 
of  Clirist  for  Truth.  He  lived  in  another  region  than 
that  of  religious  quarrel.  To  him,  botli  Judaism  and 
Samaritanism  were  worn-out  forms  of  truth ;  and  he 
came  to  put  them  both  aside,  and  to  lead  men  into  a 
new  world.  But  had  he  been  like  some  of  our  modern 
prophets,  who  place  themselves  above  religious  disputes, 
he  M-ould  not  have  thought  it  worth  while  to  decide 
which  of  them  had  the  most  truth,  which  of  them  then 
was  worthiest.  "  Both  are  nothing  to  me,"  he  would 
then  have  said  to  the  woman.    "  Leave  them  both  alone, 


22 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


and  come  i;p  and  sit  with  me."  And  tlie  M'oman  could 
not  have  understood  him,  and  would  have  thought  him 
careless  of  truth.  Two  things  wliich  you  know  avcU 
enough  are  tlie  case  Avith  regard  to  some  of  our  prophets. 
They  are  not  luiderstood,  and  they  are  thought  to  be 
indifferent  to  truth ;  and  both  these  imputations  (of 
which  sometimes  some  of  them  are  proud,  since  they 
isolate  them  from  men  in  lonely  dignity) — though  it  is 
odd  to  be  jsroud  of  not  being  understood,  odder  still 
of  being  separated  from  man  —  hinder  their  work,  and 
sjioil  the  good  they  might  do  to  men.  But  Christ  did 
not  take  that  position.  Tliough  he  lived  in  tlie  loftiest 
region,  at  home  with  absohite  truth,  he  could  come 
down  among  tlie  strifes  of  men  about  relative  truth,  and 
see  on  Avhich  side  in  the  lower  region  tlie  greatest  amount 
of  trutii  lay.  He  was  not  thinking  of  himself,  nor  of 
what  the  Avorld  Avould  think  of  him,  nor  whether  his 
Avay  of  putting  truth  would  Avin  the  day.  He  thought 
only  of  the  cause  of  truth  itself  and  of  the  adA  antage 
of  mankind. 

He  thought  of  the  cause  of  truth,  and  he  felt  that 
it  Avas  of  high  imi)ortance  that  he  should  j^lainly  say 
Avhetlier  Jerusalem  or  Samaria  Avere  tlie  nearest  to  truth. 
And  if  Ave  li\e  Avitli  him  in  a  world  above  forms  and 
opinions,  churches  and  sects,  Ave  shall  often  have,  if  we 
Avish  to  do  any  good,  to  folloAv  him  in  this.  It  is  a  great 
difficulty  sometimes  to  descend  and  take  the  trouble  of 
Aveighing  opposite  A'ieAvs,  to  decide  betAveen  this  sect  and 
that,  Avhen  Ave  do  not  2:)ersonally  care  about  either.  It 
is  our  temjitation,  liA  ing  in  the  region  of  ideas,  to  despise 
the  region  of  forms  Avhere  the  battle  is  going  on,  to  use 
the  language  of  the  Latitudinarian,  though  we  do  not 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


23 


belong-  to  tliat  meteoric  party.  Eut  it  is  a  difficulty  we 
should  overcome  and  a  temptation  we  should  resist. 
For,  though  it  is  of  no  importance  to  us  personally,  it  is 
of  the  greatest  importance  to  the  progress  of  the  -world 
tliat  no  indifference  to  tnith,  even  to  comparative  truth, 
sliould  be  shown.  We  must  take  trouble  and  say,  Jeru- 
salem is  better  than  Samaria. 

And  the  grounds  of  our  decision  shoiUd  be  the  same 
as  Christ's.  "Salvation  is  of  the  Jews":  it  is  best  for 
mankind  that  they  should  prcA  ail  over  tlie  Samaritans. 
That  is  the  question  we  should  ask  ourselves,  laying 
aside  all  prejudice,  stopping  down  out  of  our  position 
in  the  future,  into  tlic  midst  of  the  existing  state  of 
things, —  From  which  of  these  contending  jiarties  will  go 
forth  most  good,  which  possesses  elements  most  capable 
of  being  naturally  dcveloi)ed  into  a  higher  religious 
form,  which  has  most  useful  truth  for  man  ?  And,  when 
you  have  answered  that,  decide  on  supporting  the  jsarty 
you  think  fulfils  best  the  conditions  for  the  present,  not 
for  its  own  sake,  but  as  against  the  other,  always  liow- 
CA-er  declaring  that  there  is  a  higher  view,  -\\  liich  if  men 
could  once  grasp,  both  would  fade  away.  Jerusalem  is 
better  than  Samaria,  and  to  be  supported  as  against 
Samaria  at  j^r^sent ;  but  before  long,  -when  men  are 
ready,  Jerusalem  will  be  set  aside  by  a  higher  Law  of 
Life,  s  Neither  here  nor  yet  at  Jerusalem  shall  ye  wor- 
shij)  the  Father. 

Another  ground  of  decision  is  contained  in  Christ's 
rejily  :  "  Ye  worship  }-e  knoAV  not  what.  "VYe  know  what 
we  worship."  The  Samaritans  had  cast  aside  the  Proph- 
ets, and  gone  back  to  the  revelation  of  Moses.  They 
had  left  out  the  last  and  the  most  important  link  in  the 


24 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


long  chain  of  tlic  dcA'clopment  of  religious  trntli,  and 
naturally  their  idea  of  God  was  grossly  inadequate  to 
the  time  in  which  they  lived.  They  Avere  like  that  party 
in  our  Church,  who,  putting  aside  all  the  later  develop- 
ments of  Christianity,  go  liack  to  the  early  Church  to 
find  the  form  of  their  religious  thought.  And  so  inade- 
quate, so  behindhand  was  their  idea  of  God,  in  compari- 
son to  tliat  Avhich  it  ought  to  be,  that  they  might  l)e  said 
to  worsliip  they  knew  not  Avliat, —  it  might  be  God,  it 
might  be  an  Id(j],  but  at  least  it  had  no  living  growth, 
no  connected  development.  It  was  a  stunted  shrub  in 
comparison  witli  the  Jewish  idea  of  God. 

When  you  want  then  to  know,  among  all  the  religions  or 
foriiis  presented  to  you,  which  to  snpi)ort  in  the  present, 
ask  yourself  which  can  knit  itself  in  the  most  unbroken 
descent  to  the  longest  past ;  which  has  grown  most 
like  a  tree,  3'ear  by  year,  century  by  century,  extend- 
ing its  branches  wider,  lifting  its  head  higher;  which  has 
taken  into  itself  most  constantly,  most  consistently,  and 
most  progressively  all  human  efforts  after  truth;  which 
has,  in  its  highest  and  best  form  —  fur  of  course,  in 
judging,  we  look  for  that  —  conceived  God  most  nobly 
and  most  in  accordance  with  the  wants  and  aspirations 
of  mankind ;  that  is,  in  wliich  has  the  idea  of  God  been 
continually  expanding,  in  equal  step  with  the  growth  of 
the  world.  In  that,  men  will  best  know  what  they  Avor- 
ship;  and  that  (hoAvever  you  may  personally  have  out- 
groAvn  its  present  form)  is  the  one  worthy  of  your  pres- 
ent support.  And  I  think,  of  course,  or  I  should  not  be 
here,  that  Christianity  answers  best  to  tliat  test,  and  that 
any  form  of  it,  even  one  as  far  beloAV  your  higher  A'iew 
of  it  as  Judaism  Avas  beloAV  the  idea  of  Christ's  Avorship, 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


26 


is  more  worthy  of  the  comj^arative  support  of  Avhich  I 
speak  than  an  unchristian  rehgion.  Lofty  as  are  the 
aims  of  Positivism,  and  unselfish  as  are  the  motives  of 
unchristian  Moralism,  I  should  have  no  hesitation  in 
giving  tliat  coiii])aratiAe  support  to  a  form  of  Chris- 
tianity with  which  I  did  not  personally  sympathize,  as 
against  these  other  forms  of  religion,  because  I  should 
feel  that  truths  more  useful  to  man  were  contained  in  a 
form  of  Christianity,  however  inadequate,  than  in  the 
very  highest  form  of  mere  Moralism,  because  I  should 
feel  that  the  one  was  capalile  of  development  and  the 
other  not.  At  the  same  time,  I  sliould  try  to  clearly 
mark  the  truths  held  by  Positivist  or  Moralist,  and  show 
wherein  they  were  better  and  more  advanced  than  the 
Christian  forms  they  0])posed.  And  with  regard  to 
those  forms  of  Christianity,  if  they  were  behind  that 
Avhich  they  ought  to  be,  I  should  not  say  that  they  were 
absolutely  good,  but  only  better  relatively  than  the 
others;  and  that,  being  inadequate  forms,  they  were 
bound  to  perish  to  make  room  for  higher  forms  which 
should  assimilate  the  truths  proclaimed  by  the  other  side, 
and  complete  themselves  by  doing  so.  That  would  be 
my  view ;  but  each  man  must  judge  for  himself,  and  take 
the  consequences  of  his  judgment. 

Leaving,  however,  this  special  application  on  one  side, 
the  method  remains,  and  the  teaching  on  the  whole 
question  is  plain,  whatever  may  be  your  higher  ground. 
You  must  not  be  intolerant  of  the  battle  waged  in  the 
world  between  forms  and  opinions  about  truth  ;  and  you 
must,  T)y  forming  a  judgment  as  to  which  is  relatively 
best  and  declaring  it,  show  that  you  are  not  indifferent 
to  truth,  even  to  comparative  truth.  That  is  what  we 
learn  from  Clirist's  answer. 


26 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


But  tliere  -^tis  a  farther  answer.  The  woman  had 
stated  the  whole  question  of  religious  strife,  and  we 
have  discussed  that  part  of  Christ's  reply  which  had  to 
do  witli  existing  circumstances.  Jerusalem  was  better 
than  Samaria.  But  there  was  something  better  still,  the 
higher  spiritual  life  in  which  the  questions  in  dispute 
between  Jerusalem  and  Samaria  Avould  wholly  cease ; 
the  life  in  the  spirit  and  in  truth  which  should  2)ass 
beyond  Jerusalem  as  a  place  of  worship,  and  everywhere 
worshi]:)  God ;  in  which  the  temj)le  and  altar  Avere 
neither  on  Mount  Moriah  nor  Mount  Gerizim,  but  set  up 
in  every  faithful  heart;  in  which  all  contest  should  die, 
for  all,  however  different  the  form  of  their  creed,  should 
worship  God  in  unity,  because  beneath  all  forms  the  spirit 
should  be  one, —  in  which  all  division  of  heart  should 
be  merged  in  that  unity  of  love  where  there  shoidd  be 
neither  Jew  nor  Samaritan,  but  only  two  brothers  who 
should  realize  their  brotherhood  beneath  all  outward 
differences,  because  they  would  both  feel  themselves 
children  of  one  Father.  ""Woman,  believe  me,  the  hour 
Cometh,  when  ye  shall  neither  in  this  mountain,  nor  yet 
at  Jerusalem,  worshiji  the  Father." 

Wh.at  a  rush  of  light  conies  Avitli  the  words !  It  is  like 
the  sun  dispersing  night.  What  a  flood  of  peace  !  It  is 
as  if  into  the  midst  of  a  battlefield  Love  and  sacred 
Quiet  had  stepped  in  hand  in  hand,  till  the  arms  dropi)ed 
from  the  warriors'  hands,  and  they  knew  and  embraced 
as  brothers  one  another.  It  is  with  an  awful  reverence 
mingled  with  the  worship  of  delight,  Avitli  admiration 
rushing  into  love,  that  Ave  listen  to  Avords  so  beautiful 
that  it  Avere  Avorth  any  suffering  in  life  to  get  into  their 
atmosphere  or  to  share  in  the  spirit  that  prompted  them. 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


27 


The  hour  was  coming,  the  hour  was  now, —  for  the  new 
Revelation  was  already  contained  in  him  who  spoke, — 
when  all  limits  of  time  and  space,  of  forms  and  cere- 
monies, should  be  removed  between  Man  and  God,  and 
men  should  worship  in  spirit  —  the  sj^irit  of  God,  in 
truth — the  absolute  Truth.  Now,  even  now,  to  Christ, 
all  controversies  abont  Jerusalem  or  Samaria  were  idle : 
he  dwelt  far  off  from  strife  upon  the  spiritual  hills  of 
truth. 

And  ^\-e,  taking  this  new  conception  of  his  into  our 
hearts,  rise  with  him  into  the  higher  region  where  the 
woman's  question  seemed  to  have  no  meaning,  where 
religious  strife  is  dead  because  God  is  worshipped  as 
Spirit  and  known  as  Truth.  Neither  in  the  Church  of 
England  nor  in  the  Church  of  Rome,  neither  in  Theism 
nor  Evanselicalism,  neither  in  Hisfh  Church  nor  Broad 
Church,  do  we  now  worship  the  Father.  We  take  up 
for  the  outward  A-ehicle  of  a  life  that  worships  in  spirit 
and  truth  whatever  form  of  creed  suits  us  best,  what- 
ever seems  to  our  careful  judgment  to  be  the  truest,  and 
to  hold,  on  the  Avhole,  truths  in  the  best  way  for  the 
world.  And  we  never  dream  of  considering  the  form 
of  creed  we  hold  as  final,  or  as  containing  the  whole  of 
truth.  It  is,  for  the  time,  relatively  truer  to  us  than 
others;  and  we  make  use  of  it.  But  to  us  God  is  every- 
where; and  we  worship  the  Father  most  truly  when  we 
enter  the  reahn  of  Infinite  Love,  where  he  abides,  beyond 
the  strife  of  men.  And,  when  we  have  so  knelt,  and 
prayed  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  and  return  to  mix  with  the 
religious  turmoil,  we  cannot  now  specialize  our  God  in 
any  outward  form.  "We  cannot  bind  his  Presence  down 
within  any  limited  form  of  confession  or  creed.    We  can 


28 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


only  smile  when  any  Church  claims  to  possess  the  whole 
of  trnth.  And  we  think  to  ourselves :  "  In  every  religion, 
in  every  sect,  in  every  superstition  even,  must  I  find  — 
since  he  is  Father  of  all  men,  and  hath  not  left  himself 
without  witness  in  any  single  heart  —  some  portion  of 
that  One  Truth  which  is  so  manifold  in  expression.  And 
life  is  too  short,  when  I  have  so  much  truth  to  find  out, 
for  me  to  have  any  time  to  look  after  and  abuse  the 
falsehoods.  Therefore,  I  will  love  men,  in  order  to  get 
at  the  best  of  them ;  and,  when  I  get  at  that,  I  shall  find 
some  new  jahase  of  truth  in  them,  and  tliere  I  shall  con- 
fess the  presence  of  God  and  worship  him  in  s])irit  and  in 
truth.  So  shall  the  whole  world  of  religious  thought, 
and,  had  I  time,  every  human  soul,  become  a  temple 
where  I  can  praise  and  pray,  and  have  the  profoundest 
joy."  For  is  there  any  joy  in  the  world  equal  to  that 
we  feel  when  we  are  able  to  worship,  in  truth,  that 
which  we  confess  the  noblest  ?  There  is  no  delight  to 
equal  adoration,  when  one  loves,  and  rightly  loves,  the 
Person  one  adores. 

And  now,  that  being  the  spirit  of  your  life,  do  you 
not  plainly  see  that  the  Avomau's  question,  so  far  as  you 
are  concerned,  is  answered?  For  your  inward  life,  reUg- 
ious  disputes  do  not  exist.  You  only  take  a  part  in  them 
when  you  have  to  form  a  judgiuent,  for  the  sake  of  the 
existing  world,  as  to  the  comparative  value  of  forms  of 
truth.  And,  when  you  take  part  in  them  in  this  way, 
you  cannot  do  it  Avith  violence  or  scorn,  with  intolerance 
or  bigotry.  These  things  ai-e  now  impossible  to  you. 
They  cannot  exist  in  the  atmosphere  you  breathe,  nor 
have  they  any  place  in  the  work  your  life  is  devoted  to, 
—  the  discovery  of  truth  in  eveiy  man  and  in  every 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


29 


religious  work  of  man,  and  tlie  worship  of  God  in  every 
phase  of  truth  that  you  discover.  Your  life  flows  on  a 
stream  of  love;  and  your  companion,  as  you  descend  the 
river,  to  find  at  last  the  ocean  of  God's  love  and  truth, 
is  Truth  itself.  This  is  the  Spirit  in  which  you  live, 
and  the  Spirit  is  God  himself.  Such  a  life  is  one  long 
worship,  and  he  whom  you  worship  is  a  Father. 


GOD  IS  SPIEIT.-II. 


1873. 

"  God  is  a  spirit ;  and  they  that  worsliip  him  must  worship  him  in 
spirit  and  in  truth."  —  John  iv.,  24. 

It  was  not  an  ntterance  unknown  to  the  heathen 
world  before  the  coming  of  Christ,  that  God  was  Spirit. 
The  Greeks,  the  jihilosophic  Hindus,  the  hiter  Platonists 
of  Alexandria,  and  many  others  in  many  nations,  had 
said  it,  and  said  it  well.  Then  what  was  there  new  in 
it  on  the  lips  of  Christ  ?  How  was  he  more  remarkal)le 
when  he  said  it  than  the  teachers  who  had  gone  before 
him?  It  is  a  question  often  on  the  li2:)s  of  the  opponents 
of  Christianity,  and  it  arises  from  their  ignorance  of 
that  Avhich  they  oppose.  For  where  do  they  find  that 
Christ  put  himself  forward  as  giving  especially  new 
truths  ?  xV  new  method  he  did  give ;  new  command- 
ments, new  inferences  from  ancient  truths,  he  did  supply; 
a  new  harmony  of  truths,  a  new  centre  for  them,  he 
did  give;  but  he  was  far  too  profoundly  convinced  of 
the  consistent  and  continuous  development  of  religious 
truth  to  dream  of  creating  anything  absolutely  new 
in  Truth.  His  work  was  linked  to  the  first  dawn  of 
religious  truth  in  the  Avorld,  and  was  the  farther  devel- 
oijmeut  and  collection  and  completion  of  all  the  truth 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


31 


that  had  been  hcfore  his  time.  He  used  Tip  all  the 
existing  materials  of  truth.  What  more  he  did  is  not 
my  business  here.  I  am  only  concerned  to  say  that 
the  present  objection  has  absolutely  no  meaning  at  all  as 
against  Christ,  and  has  none  in  this  case.  In  many 
points,  the  quality  of  the  spiritual  doctrine  of  God  as 
jiroclaimed  by  the  Greek  ])liilosophers  was  as  high  as 
that  of  Christ.  It  was  not,  then,  in  its  novelty  alto- 
gether that  it  was  superior.  It  was  in  this :  that  he  for 
the  first  time  made  it  common  property.  lie  brought  it 
and  other  truths  which  philosophers  and  men  of  culture 
had  kept  to  themselves • — -for  they  did  not  believe  that 
the  uncultivated  could  understand  them  —  down  to  the 
ranks  of  the  ignorant  and  the  poor,  to  children  and  to 
women.  He  believed  not  only  in  the  divine  capacity 
of  the  soul  of  every  man  to  receive  truth;  but  he  be- 
lieved also,  and  it  was  a  harder  thing,  in  the  intellectual 
power  of  all  men,  women,  and  children  to  comprehend 
truths,  once  the  soul  was  awakened.  Noble  emotion 
would  kindle  the  intellect.  It  was  that  idea  that  the 
philosojihers  had  never  seized,  and  it  was  by  that  idea 
that  Christ  far  excelled  them. 

^Vnother  than  he  had  done  the  same  before  his  time. 
That  was  the  Indian  Prince  who  gained  the  name  of 
Buddha.  lie,  too,  laid  his  truths  before  the  common 
peojile  as  property  Avhich  ought  to  be  common  and  could 
1)6  common.  In 'that  ])oint  of  the  manner  of  teaching, 
he  Avas  at  one  with  Clirist.  The  contest,  then,  as  to  the 
superiority  of  Christianity  and  Buddhism  does  not  rest 
on  the  manner  of  teaching,  but  on  the  quality  of  the 
doctrine  taught ;  and  I  do  not  think  any  one  can  ration- 
ally doubt  as  to  the  j^hice  to  be  given  to  the  doctrines  of 


32 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


Buddha  and  Christ  with  regard  to  the  nature  of  God, — 
the  point  in  question  to-day. 

So  far  tlien,  Ave  come  to  this  conchision.  Christ  taught 
a  doctrine  about  God  as  spirit  as  high  as  the  Greek,  in 
a  manner  as  noble  as  Buddha.  He  told  a  truth  "which 
the  Buddhist  excludes  as  untrue,  in  a  way  which  the 
Greek  philosoj^hers  would  have  thought  absurd.  That 
makes  him  sufficiently  unique  as  a  teacher. 

Tliink  what  it  was  that  he  did  here !  He  spoke  the 
divinest,  the  central  truth  of  all  the  loftiest  Aiyan  phi- 
losophers to  a  poor,  ignorant,  and  heretic  woman, —  even 
in  speaking  it  to  a  tcomaa  transcending  at  once  all  the 
customs  and  ideas  of  the  philosojjhers.  In  itself,  that 
was  a  revolution, — the  admission  of  Avomen  into  the 
highest  spheres  of  thought.  But  it  is  even  more  aston- 
ishing, when  Ave  think  that  he  Avho  claimed  to  be  the 
A^ery  Son  of  God  jdaced  this  ignorant  peasant  so  far  on 
an  intellectual  and  s])iritual  equality  Avith  himself  as  to 
belicA'e  her  callable  of  comprehending  and  feelmg  the 
deejjest  truth  of  all.  Do  you  appreciate  the  daring  and 
splendor  of  that '?  "What  does  it  not  say  of  his  insight 
into  the  human  heart,  of  his  infinite  trust  in  goodness, 
of  his  belief  in  the  capacity  of  the  soul,  of  his  rcA'erence 
for  the  jiOAver  of  the  human  intellect ! 

Theologians  tell  us  that  Christ  did  not  honor  human 
nature  as  it  Avas,  and  they  have  avoa'cu  theories  about  its 
utter  fall.  But  the  life  of  Christ  in  viA-id  act  and  speech 
is  one  long  contradiction  of  the  lie  Avhich  says  that  we 
are  by  nature  not  only  far  gone  from  righteousness 
(that  is  plain  enough),  but  utterly  separated  from  God. 
Neither  from  his  light  of  Avisdom  nor  from  his  loA'e  of 
righteoHsness  are  Ave  ajjart.    Xeither  in  brain  nor  heart 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


33 


are  we  divided  from  liiiu.  Wc  are  his  children  on  all 
sides  of  our  nature.  And  it  is  our  -work  to  go  through 
the  world  believing  in  these  divine  capabilities  of  heart 
and  brain,  feeling  that  when  we  speak  of  divine  truths 
there  is  a  divinity  in  man  that  will  answer  to  them, 
and  bringing  to  all  alike,  encouraged  by  this  lofty  faith, 
the  truths  which  jjhilosophers  claim  as  only  theirs,  be- 
cause only  to  be  grasped  after  long  and  special  culture. 

We  take  our  stand  with  Christ,  and  say:  "Awaken 
love,  and  men  will  comprehend  anything.  Quicken  the 
action  of  the  bi-ain  by  stirring  high  emotion,  and  all  its 
2:»owers  are  illuminated.  Sow  truth,  and  there  is  a  vital 
power  in  the  dullest,  most  barbarous  soul,  which  will 
sooner  or  later^  here  or  hereafter,  assimilate  it."  And 
why?  It  is  the  natural  food  of  man.  It  was  curious 
that  philosophy  could  not  see  that  fact,  nor  that  it  Avas 
true  of  all  men. 

The  ancient  philosophers  failed  because  they  could 
neither  understand  nor  believe  in  that.  They  kept  their 
truths  within  their  own  circle,  and  in  doing  so  they  not 
only  failed  to  influence  men  widely,  but  they  lost  the 
truths  also  that  they  held.  And  they  lost  them  for 
precisely  the  same  reason  they  had  for  not  giving  them, 
because  they  would  not  believe  enough  in  men  to  cast 
them  forth  over  the  soil  of  the  popular  heart.  To  keep 
any  truth  within  an  exclusive  circle  is  to  insure  its  decay 
within  that  circle.  It  will  take  meaner  and  meaner 
forms,  because  more  and  more  oljscure  ones.  Its  early 
vigor  will  be  exhausted  by  confinement  to  a  few  minds, 
who  will  tend  more  and  more  to  routine.  It  will  grow 
gradually  decrepit,  and  cease  to  have  the  youth  Avhich 
kindles  others,  and  will  end  by  either  slow  consum^jtiou 


34 


FAITH  AXD  FREEDOM. 


or  sudden  death.  For  it  will  suffer  morally  under  these 
conditions,  as  a  family  suffers  physically  that  only  inter- 
marries within  itself.  It  Avill  suffer  from  protection,  as 
an  article  of  commerce  suffers.  Truth  must  intermarry 
with  all  types  of  mind,  in  order  to  preserve  its  moral 
and  intellectual  vigor.  There  must  be  free  trade  in 
truth,  if  it  is  to  be  healthy. 

Moreover,  to  confine  any  truth  within  a  limited 
sphere  is  not  only  to  bring  about  its  decay,  but  also  to 
delay  its  recognition  by  the  worM.  Tlie  main  object  of 
those  who  knoAV  truth  is  not  to  boast  themselves  of 
having  it  while  others  have  it  not, —  and  that  there 
shoidd  be  some  who  do  this  l)ut  sIiom  s  the  radical  vice  in 
these  exclusive  sects  of  culture, —  luit  to  ;\vork,  that  man- 
kind may  share  in  it,  and  be  blest  by  its  possession. 
Now,  the  only  way  to  get  mankind  to  take  it  in  is  to 
send  it  forth  everywhere.  It  will  then  be  taken  up  by 
men,  mistaken,  and  thrown  into  forms  which  will  partly 
contradict  its  meaning.  Tliis  will  irritate  its  original 
teachers,  and  natur:dly  so.  But  they  ought  not  only  to 
have  the  moral  patience  to  endure  that,  but  the  intelli- 
gence to  see  that  it  is  a  necessary  stej?  toward  the  recep- 
tion of  a  truth  that  it  should  go  through  a  number  of 
inadequate  rej^resentations  of  its  meaning.  Sooner  or 
later,  that  process  Avill  have  to  be  gone  through ;  and 
the  longer,  through  dislike  of  it,  men  keep  back  their 
truths  fi-om  the  common  peojile,  the  more  do  they  imt 
off  the  day  when  they  will  be  clearly  understood  and 
fully  received.  But  the  Nemesis  of  an  aristocracy  of 
culture  is  that  it  loses  intelligence  and  the  sense  that 
handles  daily  life. 

Do  not  think  when  I  say  this  that  I  depreciate  culture 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


35 


in  itself,  or  the  forms  which  advanced  knowledge  and 
thought  give  to  truth.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  as 
useful  as  necessary.  Culture,  seeing  further  than  the 
world  in  which  it  lives,  prophesies  the  forms  which 
Truth  will  possess  in  the  future,  sows  seeds  which  will 
germinate  into  forests,  and  prepares  the  mind  of  the 
world  for  farther  revelations.  It  has  its  place,  and  its 
work  is  a  noble  one.  But  it  is  false  to  its  work  and  its 
l)lace.  It  ruins  its  own  use,  and  becomes  a  retarding 
element,  when  it  isolates  its  truths  through  contempt  for 
the  ig-norant,  when  it  refuses  to  believe  in  the  cajiabili- 
ties  of  man. 

Therefore,  let  any  truth  you  possess  go  about  freely, 
so  that  it  may  be  produced  in  various  forms  in  various 
minds,  and  assimilate  new  elements  from  new  soils. 
Let  it  not  only  get  into  learned  men  who  are  partly 
conventionalized  by  the  traditions  of  a  school,  but  into 
the  natural  and  untaught  minds  of  tlie  uneducated, 
where  it  will  find  original,  if  strange,  forms, —  forms 
not  too  liigh  for  the  existing  world  to  adoj>t,  such  as 
exclusive  culture  gives  it  for  its  own  exclusive  worship ; 
forms  which  can  be  used  and  worked  by  ordinary  men, 
however  much  they  may  dismay  the  cultivated.  Do  not 
be  too  afraid  or  too  squeamish.  Put  Truth  forth  into 
the  big  world  among  rough  hearts :  give  it,  as  you  give 
freedom,  to  all  men.  Then  it  will  spread,  keep  alive, 
and  finally  triumjih. 

It  was  this  Christ  saw,  and  therefore  Christianity  flew 
far  and  near,  took  a  novel  life  in  every  heart,  a  novel 
form  in  every  nation,  and  though  its  ideas,  by  the  very 
nature  of  the  method,  were  travestied,  or  turned  upside 
down,  or  idealized  too  much,  or  realized  too  grossly  ' 


36 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


(in  fact,  they  suffered  every  transformation  they  could 
suffer),  yet  they  spread,  the}'  lived  an  ever-renewed 
life;  and,  clearly  conceived  and  justly  felt  by  some,  they 
have  already  shaken  off  many  of  their  false  and  absurd 
forms,  and  stand  out,  the  leading  conceptions  on  which 
the  progress  of  the  race  is  founded.  The  false  and 
absurd  forms,  or  tlie  inadequate  ones  that  still  remain, 
will  also  l)e  exhausted  in  the  sifting  and  resifting  which 
the  intelligence  and  heart  of  all  the  world  will  give 
them ;  and  after  ages  of  development,  during  which 
mankind  shall  have  gone  through  them  up  to  its  full 
height,  tliey  will  appear  as  the  sun  a})pears  when,  lifting 
his  majesty  out  of  the  clouds  of  morning  and  drinking 
them  into  his  light,  he  illuminates  with  joy  and  radiance 
all  mankind. 

The  whole  conception,  the  Avhole  method,  was  worthy 
of  a  divine  mind,  was  prompted  by  a  foresight  truly 
Godlike.  It  needed  intense  belief  in  God,  it  needed 
intense  belief  in  human  nature ;  and  it  had  both  in 
Christ  in  a  way  which  was  true  of  no  other  teacher 
the  world  has  known.  It  Avas  a  method  which,  once 
accepted  (and  in  its  determined  carrying  out  of  it  the 
Christian  Church  has  been  true  to  its  Founder),  l>ecame 
the  enemy  of  all  aristocracies  of  culture  and  religion, 
and  wherever  it  prevails  it  is  their  foe.  Christ  is  at  the 
head  of  a  spiritual  democracy  before  God.  He  said: 
"All  men  are  ecjual :  in  spirit  and  in  heart,  they  are  all 
to  be  conceived  as  cajiable  of  receiving  the  same  truths, 
though  the  degree  of  their  growth  in  them  be  different. 
In  the  giving  of  truth  there  shall  be  no  exclusiveness. 
Therefore,  I  take  this  central  truth,  and  give  it  to  this 
ignorant  Avoman  to  make  of  it  what  she  likes.    God  wUl 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


37 


direct  it ;  the  seed  sown  will  grow, —  it  may  be  into  a 
false  form,  but  it  will  finally  clothe  itself  with  a  true 
one."  And  how  right  he  was !  Better  truth  in  a  false 
form  th;in  a  lie  in  a  true  one ;  better  truth  in  an  inade- 
quate form  than  exclusive  silence  al>out  truth.  The 
form  Avill  perish,  the  truth  will  remain  and  rise  again 
with  a  new  morning  in  its  eyes. 

That  is  what  I  have  to  say  of  the  method  of  teaching 
which  Christ  ]>ractised,  as  I  learn  it  from  this  story. 
And  now  for  tlie  truth  itself.  God  is  Spirit;  and  they 
that  worship  him  must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in 
truth. 

I  approach  one  part  of  it,  or  God  as  a  spirit  in  all 
men,  by  dwelling  on  Christ's  act  in  giving  this  truth  to 
the  Samaritan  woman  as  a  representative  act.  In  giving 
it  to  her,  he  gave  it  to  all  in  her  state  of  intellect  and 
heart.  He  proclaimed  in  giving  it  to  her  that  it  was 
not  only  for  learned  and  civilized  people,  but  for  all 
peo2)le,  however  ignorant,  savage,  and  poor ;  and,  if  for 
all,  then  the  spiritual  life,  or  the  indwelling  of  God,  was 
Ijossible  to  all.  But,  if  it  was  j^ossible  for  all,  it  could 
only  be  so  by  a  previous  kinship  between  all  human 
spirits  and  God  the  source  of  spirit.  To  give  it  to  all 
was  then  to  jiroclaim  that  God  as  sj^irit  moved  in  all. 

Again,  to  put  it  in  another  form.  When  Christ  gave 
that  truth  to  all,  it  was  in  fact  the  logical  carrying  out 
of  the  truth  itself.  God  is  Spirit.  Did  it  occur  to  no 
philosopher  when  he  excluded  some  from  the  knowledge 
of  that  truth  as  incapable  of  feeling  it  that  he  was 
practically  denying  it?  How  could  God  be  Sj^irit,  if 
any  human  sjiirit  whatever  w^as  radically  unable  to  know 
and  live  by  that  truth.    For  it  supposes  God  —  unless 


38 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


we  deny  a  soul  to  the  ignorant  or  tlie  brutal,  as  some 
more  reasonably  ilid  —  as  in  all  spirits;  it  supposes  that 
no  sjjiritual  being  can  exist  at  all  except  through  the 
existence  in  it  of  the  essential  spirit.  That  is  the  logical 
inference:  if  he  is  spirit,  he  is  in  all  spirits;  in  all  living, 
thinking,  feeling  beings  of  whatever  kind.  "What!  the 
jihilosopher  would  say,  and  some  are  saying  now, —  in 
the  Helot,  and  the  barbarian,  in  those  who  live  like  the 
brutes,  who  mock  at  knowledge  ?  in  the  far  back  men  in 
whom  our  race  first  felt  intelligence  and  whose  remains 
we  find  in  caves  and  dens  of  the  earth?  in  the  gross 
savage  of  Australia  and  Africa,  in  races  as  far  remoA-ed 
from  our  intelligence  as  east  is  from  Avest?  in  the 
criminal  and  the  outcast  of  our  streets,  in  the  sinner  as 
in  the  seraph?  Yes,  that  is  simply  what  Christ  said  and 
meant,  believe  it  or  not,  if  you  -will,— that  is  simply  what 
the  statement  that  God  is  Spirit  partly  means,  unless  we 
deny  that  there  is  a  God  who  is  Spirit.  There  is  in  all 
who  are  born  into  this  world  as  ])art  of  mankind  a 
universal  Life,  and  that  life  is  God's  life,  latent  in  some, 
more  formed  in  others,  vivid  and  full  in  the  best  of  the 
race,  but  absent  from  none.  None  are  divorced  from 
the  Life  of  Truth  and  Love  and  Righteousness,  none  able 
finally  to  be  divorced  from  it;  and  though  that  Life  in 
the  man,  like  Truth  in  the  world,  may  run  wild  and  run 
to  evil,  it  will  be  sovereign  in  him  in  the  end  and  perfect 
him,  as  Tr\ith  will  be  sovereign  in  the  race.  That  is  the 
first  conception  I  give  you  with  regard  to  the  truth  of 
God  as  Spirit. 

Believing  that,  what  should  be  the  result  on  our  life? 
We  should  ourselves  worship  God  in  this  truth,  and  in 
its  spirit  live  among  men.    For  ourselves,  to  Avorship 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


39 


God  ill  this  trutli  is  to  live  one's  whole  sjiiritual  life  in 
it  and  by  it,  believing  that  God  is  in  us.  We  may  have 
been  reckless,  godless,  because  we  heard  our  nature  pro- 
nounced to  be  corrupt  in  all  its  waj's :  Ave  now  turn  Avith 
a  thrill  of  joy,  and  recognize,  led  by  the  light  of  a  new 
faith,  the  A'ery  Spirit  of  God  in  us,  speaking,  liA^ing, 
iiii|)elUng,  Avorking  with  us  for  our  2)erfection.  We 
believe,  not  in  the  degradation  of  our  nature,  but  in 
the  insjjiration  by  God  of  its  best  desires  and  affections. 
We  knoAV  it  is  true  that  Ave  are  tAvofold  beings,  half-evil 
and  half-good;  and  Ave  knoAV  our  evil  all  the  better  Avhen 
Ave  are  conscious  of  the  good  in  us.  We  feel  all  our 
human  Aveakness  and  its  failures;  but  Ave  also  know  that 
a  high  resolve  Avhich  passes  into  action,  and  the  uncon- 
tented energy  Avhich  despises  a  day  gone  by  Avithout 
some  progress  tOAvard  our  ideal, —  that  the  tears  of  a 
penitence  Avhich  is  not  repented  of,  and  the  faith  AA^hich 
begins  again  after  failure, —  that  the  hopes  which  are  so 
Ijright  and  pure  that  they  act  on  us  like  realities,  and 
the  Love  Avliich  is  making  our  Avhole  character  ucaa', — 
are  things  in  us  not  merely  human,  but  the  Avork  Avithin 
us  of  an  inspiring  Spirit  wdiom  Ave  Avorship  in  spirit. 

There  is  indeed  a  God  Avith  us,  in  our  hearts.  BelieA'e 
in  that,  live  in  the  truth  that  God  is  incarnating  himself 
in  you,  that  his  spirit  is  at  one  Avith  ydurs.  So  that,  if 
you  Avill,  your  thought  and  Avork  and  Avill  may  be  God's 
thought  and  Avork  and  Avill,  and  you  yourself  become  a 
Christ,  dAvelling  in  God,  and  God  in  you,  at  one  with 
the  Father,  as  he  Avas  at  one  Avith  the  Father.  Realizing 
the  full  meaning  of  the  last  part  of  the  jjrayer  of  the 
Saviour  in  the  Gospel  of  St.  John,  all  life  will  become 
divine,  all  thought  godlike,  all  Avork  glorious :  you  will 


40 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


live  in  the  veiy  Being  of  the  Eternal  and  Righteoiis  God, 
through  the  jiower  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Secondly,  worship  God  not  only  in  yourselves  in  this 
truth,  hut  live  in  it  and  in  its  spirit  among  men,  and 
your  outward  life  will  then  he  in  it  worship  of  God  in 
spirit  and  truth. 

What  will  that  worship  he?  It  Avill  he  to  search  for 
the  divine  in  men,  to  assume  its  existence,  to  delight  in 
it,  and  draw  it  forth.  Most  of  iis  assume  the  contrary, 
and  we  find  it.  Men  find  that  which  they  seek ;  and 
there  is  plenty  of  evil  to  find,  if  we  like  that  sort  of  dis- 
covery. It  is  bad  and  ugly  work;  for,  looking  for  evil 
and  finding  it,  we  make  men  more  evil  than  they  were 
befoi-e.  Did  you  ever  search  for  falsehood  in  your  child, 
and  not  find  it,  and  not  make  your  child  falser  by  contin- 
ually imputing  falsehood  to  it,  and  making  it  conscious 
of  it?  That  is  the  wicked  work  men  may  do  in  the 
world  to  their  fellow-men,  and  it  is  devilish  work  indeed. 
Or,  if  they  do  not  find  evil, —  being  spurred  by  their 
base  assumption  of  evil  in  man, —  they  create  it.  Their 
eyes  are  blind  to  good,  quick  to  image  sin.  Their  very 
intelligence  is  made  foolish  by  prejudice  of  evil, —  just 
as  some  in  a  late  autobiography  refused  to  believe  in  a 
disclaimer  of  wrong  from  the  lips  of  the  dead,  as  if  it 
could  be  a  lie !  This  is  also,  in  its  stupidity,  as  well  as 
its  malice,  quite  in  harmony  with  the  devil  nature. 

It  Avas  not,  it  never  was,  the  way  of  Christ.  He 
neither  looked  for  evil,  and  found  it,  nor  was  forced 
by  an  ugly  necessity  to  invent  it.  He  assumed,  on  the 
contrary,  the  divine  in  all,  searched  for  it,  expected  it, 
and  found  it.  And  it  is  that  more  than  all  else  in  him 
that  attaches  me  to  him :  it  is  that  I  reverence  and  woi-- 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT, 


41 


ship  with  my  Avhole  souL  Let  it  be  our  way  of  worship- 
l^ing  God  the  Sjjirit  among  men.  Let  us  say,  when  we 
meet  man,  Avoman,  or  child :  "  The  goodness  of  God  is 
in  this  human  spirit,  if  I  only  could  find  it.  Give  me 
therefore,  Divine  Sjiirit,  whom  in  the  spirit  of  this  truth 
I  worship,  power  to  find  thj  self  here  in  my  fellow-man. 
If  thy  goodness  be  clear  within  him,  may  it  teach  and 
help  me :  if  it  be  latent,  overlaid  with  error  and  sin,  may 
I  have  the  blessedness  of  drawing  it  forth  to  light,  and 
making  known  to  the  man  how  good  he  may  become, 
how  near  God  he  is.  What  my  Saviour  did  for  the 
Magdalene  and  for  Zaccheus  be  my  example  and  my 
aim." 

That  will  be  a  blessed  life, —  a  real  life  of  worship  of 
God  in  spirit  and  truth.  It  will  lead  you,  as  it  led  Christ, 
to  care  very  little  for  the  judgments  of  the  world  about 
persons  or  social  classes,  or  for  the  judgments  of  moral- 
ists and  so-called  religious  persons.  It  will  lead  you  into 
what  the  world  and  its  whitewashed  sepulchres  will  call 
false  charity  and  immoral  laxity  of  02).inion.  You  will 
be  said  to  be  mad,  or  to  have  a  devil.  You  may  be 
called  not  of  God,  because  you  do  not  obey  the  maxims 
of  social  ojjinions,  and  infidel  because  you  traverse  the 
faiths  of  society.  But  that  will  matter  little,  if  you  are 
sure  of  your  faith  in  goodness.  The  talk  of  the  world 
about  you  will  be  as  the  hum  of  a  city  to  a  man  who 
lives  above  it  on  the  hill, —  it  will  scarcely  reach  your 
ear.  Nor  is  it  worth  your  while  to  listen  to  it.  It 
leadeth  only  to  penury  of  intelligence  and  to  meanness 
or  hardness  of  heart.  The  maxims  of  society  and  the 
condemnations  it  formulates  by  them  on  tlie  ground  of 
its  ceaseless  suspicion  of  evil  are  so  wicked  at  times,  and 


42 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


SO  Ugly  always,  that  your  great  difficulty  will  be  to 
extend  to  the  persons  who  imt  them  forth  the  tolerance 
and  the  loving-kindness  which  you  must  not  give  to 
their  opinions;  and  the  spirit  of  them  is  so  dull  and 
unintelligent  as  well  as  uncharitable  —  is  not  all  want  of 
charity  necessarily  stupid?  —  that  the  greatest  good  that 
can  happen  to  a  man's  heart  or  intellect  is  to  have 
escaped  altogetlier  from  the  atmosphere  of  the  world. 
But  you  must  not  expect  at  the  same  time  to  get  on  in 
the  world:  you  must  frankly  give  up  its  rewards,  if  you 
choose  to  escape  from  its  region ;  and  you  must  escape 
on  Christ's  ground, —  on  the  ground  of  believing  in  tlie 
goodness  of  man.  It  will  not  do  to  separate  yourself 
from  the  world,  and  to  keep  up  harsli  judgments  and 
contemjst  of  men  and  disbelief  in  goodness,  and  become 
the  morose  and  inhospitable  scorner  of  men.  You  must 
not,  in  setting  yourself  against  the  opinions  of  the  world, 
disbelieve  in  the  divine  Spirit  ni  those  who  hold  those 
opmions,  else  you  are  just  as  bad  as  they.  Nay,  more, 
in  such  a  separation  you  are  in  worse  case  than  if  you 
lived  in  the  world, — for  tliere  you  are  at  least  among 
men  and  have  a  chance  of  attaining  belief  in  goodness, — 
in  bitter  isolation  \o\i  have  none.  No,  you  must  live 
your  separate  life  in  separation  from  opinions,  not  from 
men,  and  live  it  freely,  nobly,  on  the  ground  of  Christ, 
— on  belief  in  the  divine  spirit  in  all.  Then  your  heart 
will  be  warm  enough  not  to  care  what  men  will  say  of 
your  ojjinions  or  your  mode  of  life.  You  Avill  be  very 
happy.  You  will  have  the  ceaseless  joy  of  finding 
people  so  much  bettor  than  you  imagined,  of  making 
people  really  better  l»y  1)ringing  them  to  know  their  own 
good,  and  giving  them  hope  and  faith  in  God  by  that 


GOD  IS  SPIRIT. 


43 


knowledge;  of  sympathies  continunlly  extending  and  of 
new  lives  continually  added  to  yours,  so  that  your  soul 
will  widen  every  day;  of  greater  hopes  for  man  grow- 
ing greater  and  more  beautiful  as  you  grow  older ;  of  an 
increasing  conviction  of  God's  jJi^esence  and  power  in 
men  and  in  yourself,  and  of  the  certainty  spi-inging 
from  that,  of  final  restoration  for  mankind.  And  day 
by  day,  to  add  to  your  joy,  there  will  increase  the 
number  of  those  who  will  thank  you  for  new  life,  and 
love  you  so  dearly  and  so  faithfully  that  you  will  not 
know  what  to  do  with  your  happiness,  except  by  making 
it  an  increased  power  of  making  others  ha2)])y.  And, 
finally,  your  own  religious  life  Avill  deepen.  Living 
always  witli  God  in  others,  continually  finding  him  in 
them,  and  worshipi)ing  him  there,  you  Avill  see  new 
phases  of  his  character,  and  your  conception  of  him 
will  grow  nobler  and  more  A-arious.  LiA-ing  always  with 
what  you  find  of  righteousness  and  truth  and  love  in 
others,  you  will  grow  into  greater  lo\e  of  these  divine 
Powers.  The  desire  to  realize  them  more  fully  in  your 
life  will  change  into  the  power  to  do  so, —  for  strong 
desires  incessantly  searching  for  and  conversant  with 
their  objects  become  powers  of  those  objects, — and  at 
last  beholding  in  all  men,  in  every  living  spirit,  some- 
thing of  God's  intellectual  and  si)iritual  life,  some  phase 
of  his  love  or  his  beauty  or  his  wisdom  or  his  truth, 
you  Avill  see  in  yourself  and  in  all,  as  in  a  glass,  the  glory 
of  the  Lord,  and  be  changed  into  the  same  image,  from 
glory  to  glory,  even  as  by  the  Spirit  of  the  Lord. 

See  now  to  what  Ave  luiA-e  been  led!  Look  around  you, 
and  in  every  lunnan  soul  Ave  behold  that  God  is  Sjjirit. 
We  cannot  see  one  lonely  islet  of  humanity  where  he 


44 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


is  not,  where  his  light  does  not  shine,  round  which  his 
love  does  not  break  like  waves.  Wander  where  we  will, 
in  the  human  spirit,  we  find  him;  and,  finding  him 
and  knowing  him  everywhere,  how  can  we  help  adoring 
him?  We  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  and  he 
seeks  with  delight  for  our  worship. 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  GOD. 


1875. 

"And  the  child  grew,  and  waxed  strong  in  spirit,  filled  with  wisdom : 
and  the  grace  of  God  was  upon  him." — Luke  ii.,  40. 

The  ■\vay  in  which  we  naturally  represent  God  to  our- 
selves is  as  a  man  with  the  power  and  wisdom  and 
goodness  of  a  perfect  man.  It  was  inevitable  that  this 
should  be  the  case  in  early  times  among  men  not  capable 
of  abstract  thought.  We  see  the  same  thing  working  in 
our  children,  even  in  ourselves.  In  jii'i^yt'i',  in  thanks- 
giving, in  the  going  forth  of  feeling  to  him,  however 
much  our  purer  reason  denies  God's  visible  jJersonality, 
we  represent  him  to  ourselves  in  human  form. 

It  is  a  tendency  which,  indulged  in  too  far,  has  jiro- 
duced  great  evils  and  awakened  the  strongest  opposi- 
tion. In  the  present  day,  scientific  study  of  all  kinds, 
as  well  as  philosophy,  have  set  themselves  against  any 
anthroiJomorphic  representation  of  God.  If  there  be  a 
God,  they  say,  conceive  him  through  nature.  I  have  no 
objection.  In  fact,  the  immense  increase  of  knowledge 
forces  us  to  reform  our  intellectual  conception  of  God; 
and  he  would  be  a  fool  indeed  who  did  not  use  all  means 
whatever  of  enlarging  and  ennobling  tliat  conception. 
Moreover,  if  we  believe  in  God,  all  the  new  knowledge 


46 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


comes  from  him,  and  is  intended  to  reveal  more  of  liim 
to  ns ;  and,  when  we  receive  it,  we  take  it  not  only  for 
its  own  sake,  but  that  we  may  lead  all  the  ideas  we 
receive  from  it  back  to  their  source,  and  find  them  com- 
pleted and  harmonized  in  our  idea  of  him.  All  sciences 
end  in  theology.  Therefore,  it  is  with  joy  and  the  kind- 
ling hope  of  reaching  higher  trutlis  about  the  Divine 
that  we  listen  to  all  that  men  of  science  tell  us.  We 
know,  if  they  do  not,  that  Nature  is  the  body  of  God, 
and  that  it  reveals  him  as  our  l)ody;  and  its  organs  and 
their  functions  reveal  our  thought.  In  its  myriad-minded 
work,  it  discloses  the  myriad-minded  God.  "  Tlie  invisi- 
ble things  of  him  from  tlie  creation  of  the  world  are 
clearly  seen,  being  understood  by  the  things  that  ai-e 
made,  even  his  eternal  j^ower  and  godhead."  We  are 
bound,  then,  if  we  Avould  have  a  worthy  theology,  to  be, 
if  not  students  of  science,  at  least  students  of  the  results 
of  science. 

And  it  is  just  the  same  with  that  part  of  art  which 
addresses  the  sense  of  beauty  and  its  pleasure  in  Nature. 
Art,  in  representation  of  natural  beauty  of  landscape 
and  of  form,  has  more  than  doubled  the  range  of  its 
work,  both  in  painting  and  poetry.  Ahnost  the  whole 
natural  world  has  been  laid  under  contribution  by  art 
with  an  intensity  and  a  univers.ality  unknown  before; 
and  if  we  are  wise,  and  know  our  time  and  our  needs, 
we  ought  to  be  able  to  take  all  the  ideas  pertaining  to 
beauty  and  form  which  we  receive  through  art  concern- 
ing Nature,  and  lead  them  upwards  also  to  ennoble  and 
enlarge  our  idea  of  God. 

All,  then,  that  we  knew  previously  of  infinite  order,  of 
harmony  within  diversity,  of  thought  as  Lord  and  King 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  GOD. 


47 


of  iiKitter,  of  beauty  as  its  soul,  of  infinite  evolution,  of 
infinite  love  brooding  in  the  world  of  Nature,  of  ever 
new  Aveaving  and  reweaving,  forming  and  reforming,  has 
been  indefinitely  increased  through  tlie  new  work  of 
science  and  of  art.  What  is  the  result,  what  should  be 
the  result,  for  us  Avho  believe  in  God  ?  We  should  say 
with  great  gratitude,  "  Our  intellectual  and  imaginative 
conception  of  God  as  pure  Tliouglit  and  pure  Beauty  has 
also  been  indefinitely  increased,  our  whole  theology  is 
widened."  And  this  is  what  science  and  art  have  done 
for  us:  only  in  their  doing  of  it  we  have  got  rid  of  the 
humanity  of  God,  of  the  conception  of  his  personality. 

Is  tliis  all  we  need  to  know  of  God?  Are  we  satisfied 
with  a  God  who  contents  our  intellect  and  our  sense  of 
beaut}', —  with  God  conceived  as  pure  Thought  through 
knowledge,  or  2:ture  Beauty  through  art?  We  have  cer- 
tainly got  rid  of .  anthropomorphism  and  of  personality ; 
but  are  we  much  the  better  for  getting  rid  of  them? 
Does  it  give  us  all  we  want ;  or,  indeed,  is  it  the  highest 
conception  we  can  form  of  God  to  say  he  is  the  universe 
of  Nature  conceived  as  Matter,  or  the  universe  of  Nature 
conceived  as  Thought,  or  the  mind  of  Nature  conceived 
as  Harmony  and  Beauty  and  impersonal  Love? 

It  seems  to  me  that  as  many  evils  follow  on  the  exclu- 
sive representation  of  God  as  im2:)ersonal  Thought  or 
Beauty  or  Love  as  follow  from  the  exclusive  representa- 
tion of  him  as  having  a  human  personality.  What  are 
we  to  do?  This:  let  us  take  all  the  ideas  we  win  from 
the  world  of  Nature  and  form  out  of  tliem  part  of  our 
conception  of  God.  But  the  world  of  Humanity  is  more 
important  than  the  world  of  Nature,  and  we  ought  to 
conceive  God  also  through  it :  we  ought  to  add  to  the 


48 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


thoughts  "H'e  liave  won  of  hiiu  from  Nature  others  which 
we  gain  tlirough  Man,  and  the  first  and  most  natural 
way  of  thinking  of  him  is  as  perfect  Manhood.  It  was 
that  idea  that  Christ  gave  to  us  in  a  way  fitted  for 
the  conscience  and  the  spirit.  God  was  our  Fatlier  in 
heaven,  wlio  was  absolutely  good,  and  who  loved  us 
utterly  and  wished  us  to  be  as  good  and  as  loving  as 
himself,  and  worked  with  us  for  that  purpose.  God  was 
placed  in  a  human  relation  to  us;  and  we  conceived  him, 
not  only  as  Thought  and  Beauty,  but  as  a  righteous  Per- 
son and  a  divine  Father,  whose  Spirit  was  the  source  of 
truth  and  love  and  pity  and  justice.  lie  was  made  ])er- 
sonal,  and  put  into  i^ersonal,  moral,  and  si)iritual  rela- 
tions to  us.    It  was  the  highest  anthroj^omorjihism. 

Add,  then,  to  the  conception  of  God  we  have  received 
from  science  and  art  that  which  we  have  received  from 
Christ ;  add,  that  is,  to  infinite  Thought  and  Beauty 
the  idea  of  an  infinite  Person,  with  a  will,  a  character, 
a  sense  of  right,  a  power  of  love  and  truth  and  justice 
such  as  we  i30ssess,  but  freed  from  sin  and  infinitely 
extended,  and  we  possess  a  conception  of  God  of  which 
we  need  not  be  otherwise  than  justly  and  nobly  proud. 
Only  guard  it  by  remembering  always  that,  in  saying 
that  God  is  j^ersonal,  we  do  not  mean  to  say  tliat  his 
personality  is  the  same  as  ours,  but  only  tliat  there  is 
that  poAver  in  him  by  which  he  can  make  himself  per- 
sonal in  us  and  for  us,  and  that  he  is  the  source  of 
2)ersonality  such  as  we  conceive  it.  Infinite  Thought, 
infinite  Beauty,  infinite  Love  and  Truth  and  Righteous- 
ness, infinite  Humanity,  infinite  Personality,  all  are  his; 
but  tney  do  not  fully  express  him,  and  to  take  any  one 
of  them  and  limit  our  idea  of  him  to  that  alone  is  evil 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  GOD. 


49 


and  leads  to  evil.  For  we  must  remember  that,  if  we 
conceive  God  as  Man  exclusively,  Ave  are  sure  to  i^roduce 
as  much  evil  as  if  we  conceive  God  as  Nature  exclusively. 

Do  we  not  know  how  evil  it  is  ?  Theology  has  taken 
this  idea  of  God  conceived  of  as  a  Man,  and  so  exclu- 
sively dwelt  upon  it  that  it  has  given  birth  to  all  kinds 
of  wrong  and  idolatrous  ideas  about  God.  I  need  not 
dwell  on  the  A-arious  phases  in  which  this  special  one- 
sidedness  has  apjieared.  God  has  been  conceiA^ed  and 
represented  as  a  kind  of  Caesar,  a  great  king  and  Avarrior, 
of  irresponsible  poAver,  Avhose  will  Avas  his  only  laAv,  and 
not  his  will  limited  by  right;  whose  might  made  his 
right ;  a  tyrant  and  no  more.  He  has  been  couceiA'ed 
as  a  great  Philosopher  alone,  or  a  great  Judge  alone,  or 
as  a  great  Creator  alone,  or  as  a  Mechanician,  divided 
from  his  universe,  arranging  the  whole  and  leaA'ing 
details  to  themselves.  And  all  these  ideas,  because  they 
stood  alone  and  limited  our  idea  of  God,  brought  forth 
eA'ils  on  evils.  Take  them  all,  take  CA'ery  one  you  can 
gain,  and  they  Avill  each  modify  the  other  and  lead  you 
on  to  higher  ideas.  Take  one  only,  and  it  aa'III  corrupt 
in  your  hands.  This,  then,  is  conclusiA'c.  The  concej)- 
tion  of  God  through  Man  is  good  Avhen  it  takes  into  it 
all  the  ideas  Ave  receiA^e  of  him  from  Nature,  evil  when 
it  does  not.  The  conception  of  God  tlirough  Nature  is 
good  when  it  takes  into  it  all  the  ideas  Ave  receive  of 
him  through  Humanity,  evil  when  it  does  not.  And  our 
whole  conception  of  him  ought  to  be  draAvn  from  all 
that  Ave  learn  from  Nature  and  all  that  we  learn  from 
Humanity.  On  that  ground,  we  have  almost  endless 
means  of  expanding  our  idea  of  God ;  and  anthropo- 
morphism, instead  of  degrading  or  rendermg  false  that 


50 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


idea,  is  of  the  highest  use  possilile  in  ennobling  it  and 
making  it  more  trtie.  Only,  as  I  say,  it  must  be  com- 
plete. "When  we  frame  an  idea  of  God  through  Man, 
we  must  take  tlie  whole  of  Man.  Is  that  done?  One 
instance  will  occur  at  once  to  you  of  the  contrary, 
which  will  not  only  illustrate  the  evil  of  limitation  of 
thought  in  this  matter,  but  also,  when  corrected,  the 
amazing  exjjansion  and  ennobling  of  the  idea  of  God 
which  is  given  by  its  correction.  Men  have  conceived 
God  only  as  masculine,  and  not  feminine.  He  thinks, 
feels,  acts  like  a  man  in  their  thoughts,  never  like  a 
womnn.  The  result  of  this  one-sided  Avay  of  thinking 
was  tliat  all  kinds  of  horrors  were  connected  with  his 
action,  and  all  kinds  of  Avicked  feelings  attributed  to 
him,  in  which  the  conception  of  Christ  also  shared.  At 
last,  Roman  Catholicism  invented  the  Virgin  and  added 
her  to  the  Godhead.  ^Ve  cannot  do  that ;  but  if  we 
want  to  correct  our  idea  of  God,  and  to  ennoble  it,  one 
of  the  first  things  we  ha^-e  to  do  is  to  add  to  it  all  the 
noble  characteristics  of  womanhood.  Take  the  distinct 
elements  which  belong  to  that,  and  which  are  for  ever 
different  from  those  that  belong  to  manhood,  and, 
making  the  necessary  abstractions,  add  them  to  your 
growing  conception  of  God.  Fix  your  mind  on  this, 
even  for  one  week,  and  you  will  be  deliglited  to  find 
how  much  your  concejJtion  of  God  will  grow  in  breadth, 
in  nobility,  incompleteness, —  amazed  to  find  hi>w  much 
you  have  omitted  from  it,  into  how  many  mutilated, 
harmful,  and  even  base  ideas  of  him  you  have  fallen 
by  conceiving  him  through  only  half  of  Humanity. 

To  go  still  further  on  tlie  same  j^atli,  men  have  con- 
ceived God  as  having  the  characteristics  Avhich  belong 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  GOD. 


51 


to  different  |)C'rio(ls  of  Man's  life.  In  formative  art,  in 
poetry,  in  the  visions  of  the  heart,  he  has  been  repre- 
sented to  the  imagination  of  men  as  a  man  in  the  prime 
of  life  when  tliey  desired  to  conceive  him  as  fulness 
of  intellect  and  power,  as  eternal  and  strong  old  age 
when  they  wished  to  conceive  hun  as  the  fulness  of 
eternal  wisdom;  and  of  hoth  these  modes  we  have 
examples  in  the  Bible.  That  which  the  poets  and  artists 
have  done  in  this  way,  Ave  ourselves  do  continually  in 
our  thoughts,  as  different  experiences  and  trials  lead  us 
to  imagine  God  differently;  and  in  this  way,  in  this 
twofold  effort,  they  and  we  have  certainly  developed 
into  greater  variety  the  spiritual  and  intellectual  idea 
of  the  Supreme.  But  one  representation  of  him  has 
been  omitted  or  but  very  rarely  touched ;  and  it  is  this 
which  I  shall  lay  before  you  to-day,  with  all  the  thoughts 
connected  with  it. 

I  cannot  recall  any  instance  in  wliicli  God  has  been 
conceived  as  the  Eternal  Child,  in  which  the  attributes 
of  such  perfect  youth  and  childhood  as  we  can  shape 
in  our  thought  have  been  added  to  our  idea  of  the 
Highest.  This  we  need  to  do,  and  this  is  suggested  to 
us  by  the  childhood  of  Him  who  was  the  express  image 
of  the  Father. 

The  first  sight  we  have  of  God  revealed  in  Man  is 
God  revealed  in  Christ  the  Child.  The  second  is  of  God 
revealed  in  youth,  when,  after  twelve  years,  we  find 
the  Saviour  in  the  Temjile ;  and,  looking  up  from  the 
Revealer  of  the  Infinite  God  to  the  Infinite  One  himself, 
we  conceive  the  glorious  elements  of  perfect  childhood 
and  2)erfect  youth  as  existing  in  him,  and  we  do  so  with 
a  reverence  which  takes  into  itself  a  great  and  dear 
delight. 


52 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


In  that  exquisite  unconsciousness  of  self  which  belongs 
to  childhood,  and  which  adorns  it  with  the  beauty  of 
an  eternal  morning,  we  recognize  one  of  the  elements 
of  the  Divine  Perfection.  Though  all  his  works  are 
known  to  him  from  the  beginning,  yet  they  are  known 
without  any  work  of  the  reHective  faculty,  such  as  we 
possess,  upon  them.  Tlioy  have  not  been  thought  out 
nor  thouglit  upon.  They  are  done  at  once, — thought, 
act,  and  will  being  as  one, — no  passing  from  one  to  the 
other,  no  meditation,  no  sense  of  the  possible  or  the 
impossible, —  infinite  wisdom  and  power  acting  as  a  child 
acts. 

We  are  wearied  with  a  thousand  thoughts  and  ques- 
tions. We  have  to  build  up  our  acts  in  meditation; 
we  ask  Avhether  they  are  right  or  wrong,  wise  or  foolish, 
whether  they  are  likely  to  fail  or  succeed,  whether 
our  motive  is  selfish  or  unselfish,  whether  the  end  is 
noble  or  worth  the  pains,  wliether  we  shall  reach  an 
end  at  all:  at  every  stej),  we  are  self-conscious.  In  the 
child  there  is  nothing  of  that.  In  God  there  is  nothing 
of  it.  And  with  its  absence  is  perpetual  blessedness, 
impossibility  of  weariness,  intensity  of  life,  and  I  believe 
the  very  depth  of  j^ersonality.  For  by  this  absence 
of  self-consciousness  the  child  throws  itself  into  the  life 
of  all  it  loves  and  sees  and  hears.  Things  are  living 
to  it  which  are  dead  to  others.  It  lives  in  the  most 
wondrous  worlds  of  tale  and  fancy,  and  they  are  real  to 
it;  and  wholly  absorbed  in  this  life  other  tlian  its  own, 
and  loving  it  with  all  its  heart,  it  possesses  that  personal 
life  in  its  fulness  which  we  want,  which  we  only  reach 
now  and  then  in  those  rare  moments  of  deep  passion, 
when  love  of  some  great  thought,  or  of  ideal  truth  or 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  GOD. 


53 


beauty,  oi*  of  man  or  woman,  liave  made  us  wliolly  forget 
ourselves,  and  live  in  the  life  of  the  universe  or  in  the 
lives  of  men. 

This  is  the  essence  of  God's  life, —  life  in  the  life  of 
all  things  and  souls  which  have  flowed  from  him;  no 
sinjrle  attribute  of  his  being  felt  or  known  within  him- 
self,  but  felt  and  known  in  that  and  those  whom  he  has 
made  the  outward  form  of  his  thought  and  spirit,  so 
that  God's  life  is  that  intensity  of  love  which  loses  self, 
to  speak  humanly,  in  that  which  it  creates  and  loves. 

And  that  is  the  deejiest  root  of  wliat  we  mean  by 
God's  personality.  It  is  in  those  rare  moments  when 
yve  have  passed  utterly  beyond  our  own  circle  of  self 
that  Ave  feel  most  a  person,  most  a  distinct  and  living 
soul.  God  has  that  glorious  sense  of  Being  at  every 
moment  of  his  infinite  existence,  never  shadowed  for 
an  instant  by  what  we  should  call  a  return  into  our- 
selves, never  lost,  as  we'  lose  it,  when,  after  losing  self, 
self  leaps  up  within  us  and  cries,  "Where  have  you 
been  away  from  me,  how  is  it  you  have  forgotten  me?" 
Death  comes  back  at  the  cry,  personality  seems  to  slip 
away  from  us,  we  ask  again  "  wdiat  we  are,"  we  doubt 
whether  we  are  or  are  not ;  in  fact,  we  cease  to  be :  we 
take  uj)  again  the  weary  task  of  becoming. 

These  are  some  of  tlie  tilings  which  belong  to  the  idea 
of  the  Eternal  Childht)od  of  God.  Intensity  of  life, 
depth  of  personality  held  in  the  absence  of  self-conscious- 
ness. Further,  do  you  not  see  that  such  a  life  can  have 
no  age,  nor  ever  be  older  after  millions  of  years  have 
gone  by  than  it  was  millions  of  years  before  ?  Like  the 
child,  it  has  no  past,  no  future  :  it  abides  in  an  ever- 
present;  it  looks  neither  behind  nor  before;  it  has  no 


64 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


memory,  no  prophecy ;  it  sees  all  that  was  and  will  be  at 
the  same  moment,  and  its  infinite  knowledge  makes  it 
forever  young.  Yes,  it  seems  to  me  that  if,  after  long 
searching,  it  were  once  granted  to  mortal  eyes  to  see  in 
a  vision,  in  that  solemn  dreamland  into  which  we  enter 
once  or  twice  in  life,  that  form  which  God  might  afford 
us  as  a  symbol  of  himself,  Ave  should  see  a  child,  -with 
the  a^vful  light  of  eternity  within  its  eyes  and  the  smile 
of  unfathomable  joy  ujion  its  lips. 

For  this  idea  we  add  also  to  our  conception  of  God 
from  childhood, —  that  there  is  eternal  rapture  in  his 
Being.  Our  thoughts  of  God  are  solemn,  su1)limc,  tinged 
often  with  a  certain  gloom  of  solitude  :  we  unconsciously 
link  to  our  thought  of  his  ceaseless  work  some  vain  touch 
of  weariness,  some  sense  of  struggle.  It  is  wise,  then, 
to  turn  to  the  thought  of  this  eternal  youth,  which  is 
renewed  forever  in  making  all  things  ever  new;  whicli 
sees  all  things  as  childhood  sees  them,  with  the  dew  of 
morning  on  them,  without  a  shade  of  languor  or  satiety  ; 
which  finds  in  the  never-ending  creation  of  new  things 
in  thought,  and  in  that  which  men  call  matter,  never- 
ending  rapture, —  that  matchless,  radiant  rapture  which 
we  know  the  shadow  of  when  we  create.  It  is  only  God 
Avliose  pleasure  has  never  been  dimmed  by  a  sense  of 
incompleteness  in  things  thought  and  done ;  whose  de- 
light is  endless,  because  each  thing  he  gives  birth  to  is 
intensely  loved  by  him, —  him  the  Eternal  Poet,  whose 
poem  is,  for  us,  Nature  and  Human-kind, —  him  who 
rejoices  forever  like  a  child. 

Add  to  tliis,  and  from  childhood  also, —  into  whose  face 
we  look  and  catch  the  vision  of  innocence, —  unutterable, 
self-delighting  Goodness ;  not  goodness  won,  as  ours  is, 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  GOD. 


55 


by  struggle,  and  bearing  on  it  tlie  stains  of  sorrow,  l)ut 
goodness,  spontaneons,  necessary,  from  everlasting  to 
everlasting ;  goodness  to  which  evil  is  non-existent, 
which  knows  not  and  cannot  know  evil,  which  does  not 
contend  with  that  which  we  call  evil,  but  sees  it  as  the 
shadow  which  goodness  casts  m  an  imperfect  nature,  a 
shadow  .which  must  pass  away  Avhen  that  nature  is  made 
jierfect, —  a  goodness,  therefore,  which  has  all  the  ex- 
quisite joy  of  innocence  without  its  ignorance, —  all  its 
naturalness  of  life  without  its  foolishness,  and  without 
its  dulness. 

These  are  some  of  the  thoughts  of  God  we  wm  when 
we  think  of  liim  as  the  Eternal  Child.  And  these 
thoughts  ought  to  be  dear  to  us,  for  so  we  add  charm 
and  joy  and  rapture,  and  a  wonderful  hope  of  glorious 
youth  to  come,"  and  the  feeling  of  the  heart  when  of  a 
dewy  morning  we  walk  out  in  new-born  sj^ring,  to  our 
religion  and  our  life  with  God.  Solemn,  grave,  and 
stately  with  many  sorrows  is  our  life  with  the  Eternal 
One,  when  we  sit  surrounded  by  long  years  of  trial,  sin, 
struggle,  painful  victory,  in  the  chambers  of  our  own 
heart,  looking  wearily  forward  to  the  long  years  to  come 
in  which  daj-  by  day  we  shall  renew  the  battle  and 
set  our  face  steadfastly  to  our  Jerusalem  with  Christ. 
Within  ourselves,  Avithin  our  memories,  our  hopes,  and 
fears,  we  seem  to  Avorshiji  a  God  Avhose  first-born  is 
sorrow  and  whose  law  is  trial,  even  to  tlie  breakin"-  of 
all  but  the  last  cord  of  the  heart.  It  seems  as  if  Ave 
Avere  saved  only,  so  as  by  fire,  in  the  supreme  agony  of 
being  M'lien  it  asserts  its  immortality  against  the  ])lian- 
tom  Death.  It  is  thus  looks  our  religion,  our  life  and 
Avorship,  Avhen  we  find  our  God  only  Avithin  the  circle  of 


66 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


our  own  experience.  Pass  out  of  thcat  experience  now 
and  then,  see  God  ■without  the  sphere  of  the  thoughts  of 
manhood,  womanhood,  and  age,  and  as  within  the  sphere 
of  eternal  youth,  eternal  childhood, —  worship  him  not 
only  as  the  Lord  Avho  heals  sorrow  and  forgives  sin,  and 
brings  you  back  from  wandering,  but  as  the  ever  joyful, 
ever  young  Delight,  whose  life  is  rapture  because  his 
life  is  unconscious  Love.  That  will  take  you  somewhat 
out  of  yourself,  make  small  your  sorrows,  dip  in  forget- 
fulness  your  sins,  fill  your  lips  with  praise,  and  put  a 
new  song  in  your  heart.  It  makes  life  happier  to  con- 
sciously conceive  and  worship  the  Eternal  Hapjjiness. 
It  takes  away  the  curse  of  time  to  know  and  love  for 
his  beauty  the  Eternal  Youth.  It  refreshes,  as  with 
the  cool  rain  of  tlie  even,  the  languid  meadows  of  later 
life,  where  every  blade  of  grass  is  a  thought  and  every 
flower  a  feeling,  when  we  realize,  in  an  hour  of  divine 
inspiration,  that  there  abides  for  us  an  eternal  childhood 
in  the  Eternal  Childhood  of  God. 

Lastly,  see  how  much  that  does  for  you,  how  much 
beauty  and  largeness  it  adds  to  your  thought  of  him  you 
worsliip.  Take  the  method  and  do  the  same  kind  of 
work  for  every  period  of  the  life  of  manhood  and 
womanhood,  and  your  thought  of  God  wiU  grow  in 
grandeur  and  in  breadth.  Pass  from  the  characters  of 
ordinary  human  life  to  those  of  the  lives  of  great  and 
inspired  men  and  women,  2>ersons  of  genius  and  power 
and  keen  feeling  and  matchless  love  and  victorious  holi- 
ness and  jnercing  truth, — the  jjrophets  and  ])oets  and 
philosophers  and  teachers  and  healers  and  saviours  of 
the  race, —  and  collect  into  one  thought  all  the  elements 
in  them  which  are  highest;  pass  from  individuals  to 


THE  CHILDHOOD  OF  GOD. 


57 


nations,  and  collect  into  your  thought  of  one  Behig  all 
the  ideas  in  their  Avorld-wide  development  which  the 
national  life  of  all  nations  has  wrought  out  at  large  and 
handed  down  to  us ;  pass  from  nations  to  the  whole  of 
the  human  race,  see  it  in  its  entirety,  grasp  and  con- 
ceive the  ideas  and  feelings  which  rule  it  in  their  most 
universal  form ;  expand  them,  idealize  them  into  per- 
fection, and,  when  you  have  done  all  in  this  ascending 
series,  add  them  to  your  conception  of  God.  Have  you 
then  conceived  him  as  he  is?  No!  no!  but  you  have 
wonderfully  enlarged  and  cnnohled  your  thought  of  him. 

Can  you  go  further  still?  Oli,  certainly.  Take  the 
whole  of  Nature  and  all  the  knowledge  you  have  gained 
of  it;  see  it  in  its  infinite  detail,  then  generalize  into 
a  few  great  ideas  all  that  you  have  learned  from  the 
detail ;  pass  beyond  this  earth  into  the  infinite  worlds 
of  space, — beyond  the  flaming  Avails ;  weary  imagina- 
tion with  the  thoughts  wliich  are  born  in  you,  as  you 
pierce  into  the  ineffable  silence  and  darkness  of  the 
spaces  beyond  our  star-cluster  where  other  star-clusters 
float, —  and  add  all  the  ideas  you  then  conceive  to 
your  conception  of  God.  Do  more;  people  all  these 
worlds  with  living  spirits,  different  no  doubt  from  us, 
but  all  at  least  the  same  in  this,  that  all  think  and  all 
love.  Imagine  the  countless  myriads  of  spirits  which 
live,  and  all  have  their  source  and  their  end,  their 
thought  and  tlicir  love,  of  God  and  by  him  and  through 
him,  and  have  you  found  him  yet?  No,  not  so  as  to 
exliaust  him.  But  you  have  indefinitely  enlarged  and 
ennobled  your  conception,  and  you  know  that  he  whom 
you  worship  is  worthy  of  your  worship. 

Then  are  you  at  rest.    Not  because  you  have  done 


58 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


all,  not  because  your  conception  has  attained  finality, 
but  because  you  have  formed  as  adequate  an  idea  of 
God  as  is  possible  to  you,  and  you  kno-w  that  it  will 
continue  to  expand.  Every  new  extension  of  knowl- 
edge, every  new  secret  science  wrests  from  Xature, 
every  new  idea  wrought  into  form  through  the  prog- 
ress of  man,  every  new  representation  of  beauty  that 
art  makes,  every  new  develo])mcnt  of  human  feeling 
and  work  in  CA'ery  sphere  of  human  activity,  will  s\\  ell 
and  dignify  your  conception  of  the  divine  and  univer- 
sal One  who  is  also  your  Father.  Till  at  last  you 
will  know,  in  that  vivid  Avay  in  which  one  does  know 
spiritual  truth,  that  such  thought  and  such  growth  of 
thought  about  God  Avill  be  immortal,  and  form  the 
ground  of  your  immortality.  It  cannot  be  that  this 
mighty  Idea,  in  me,  in  all  my  fellow-men,  once  we  have 
possession  of  it,  should  die  in  us;  infinitely  worthy  in 
itself,  it  makes  tliose  who  have  it  infinitely  worthy. 
The  thought  is  by  itself  eternal,  and  guarantees  eternity 
to  those  who  think  it.  In  itself,  by  its  essence,  it  is 
immortal.  I  who  think  it  am  immortal.  It  is  in  God, 
who  lives  forever.  I  who  think  it  am  also  in  God  for- 
ever. 


THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD  li^"  MATsT. 


1876. 

"That  was  the  true  light,  which  lighteth  every  man  that  cometh 
into  the  world." — John  i.,  9. 

These  -words  were  written  many  years  after  Christ 
had  left  the  earth,  and  they  were  written  expressly  from 
tlie  spiritual  point  of  view.  That  is,  they  refer  to  the 
inward  light  of  Christ's  spirit  in  men's  hearts,  not  to  the 
outward  light  which  he  manifested  tlirough  his  earthly 
life.  The  light  is  the  diVine  indwelling  of  Christ's  sj^irit 
in  the  soul.  It  helongs,  we  are  told,  to  every  man  that 
Cometh  into  the  Avorld.  It  is  not  given  at  random  or  by 
favoritism,  as  some  decide :  it  is  not  given  at  bajDtism, 
and  not  Avithout  bajitism :  it  is  not  given  through  man 
or  man's  ordinances.  All  these  and  similar  statements 
are  added  to  the  Scriptures.  It  is  simply,  we  are  told, 
the  liglit  in  eveiy  man  that  is  born, —  God's  light  in  us, 
the  uncreated  fountain  of  all  that  is  true  and  good  and 
beautiful  and  kind. 

When  we  grasp  a  truth,  and  the  exquisite  pleasure 
of  knowing  what  is  true  abides  with  us  like  a  noble 
guest ;  when  we  conquer  a  selfish  or  worldly  desire,  and 
lie  down  to  rest  on  the  goodness  we  have  won,  and  feel 
at  peace ;  when  in  the  golden  summer  time  we  pass 


60 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


through  the  happy  woodland,  and  hear  the  stream  and 
the  trees  talk  to  one  anotlier,  and  the  beauty  that  flows 
into  the  eyes  and  eai-s  kindles  its  instructive  fire  in  our 
hearts;  when  we  give  love  or  ])ity  or  kindness  to  those 
that  need  it,  and  the  quick  thrill  of  lieavcnly  joy,  such  as 
the  shepherd  feels  when  he  finds  his  lost  sheep,  swells 
the  heart, —  what  is  it  that  we  feel?  We  feel  not  only 
ourselves,  but  God  witliin  us.  His  is  the  truth,  the 
goodness,  his  the  beauty  and  the  tenderness,  and  his  the 
joy.  He  is  mingled  with  us  then.  His  light  and  life 
make  our  light  and  our  life. 

And  it  matters  but  little  as  to  our  j^ossession  of  this, 
whether  we  be  ]ioor  or  rich,  learned  or  imlearned, 
commonjilace  or  filled  with  genius.  It  is  true  it  is  more 
or  less  in  all  men,  it  is  of  different  kinds  in  different 
men;  but  it  shines  in  all.  One  may  hold  it  in  a  soul 
which  is  a  palace  for  the  crowned  Truth  to  dwell  in; 
another  may  keej)  it  in  a  soul'which  is  a  ruined  cabin, 
where  many  an  outlawed  thought  and  many  a  felon 
feelinc:  dwells.  But  its  eternal  fire  burns  in  both, —  in 
one  as  brightly  as  the  sun,  in  the  other  dimly  as  in 
a  dying  star.  Jfone  are  without  the  Spirit  of  God. 
We  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  because  he  is 
in  us.  Tliere  is  no  true  life,  no  true  thought,  no  true 
feeling  of  which  he  is  not  the  source  and  essence. 
Therefore,  we  know  whence  we  are,  and  what  we  are, 
and  whither  we  are  tending.  We  are  from  God,  we  are 
of  God,  and  we  are  going  on  to  deeper  union  with  him. 
Therefore,  we  know  whether  we  are  mortal  or  immortal. 
As  he  has  wrought  himself  up  with  us,  we  cannot  die. 
We  are  a  vital  part  of  his  eternal  Being. 

When  we  say  these  things,  we  assume  the  Being 


THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD  IN  MAN. 


61 


of  God  and  our  being  in  liim.  We  start  our  whole 
thought  and  reasoning  and  feeling  on  the  subject  of 
what  we  are  from  the  belief  in  God.  And  we  think 
that  our  own  being  and  that  of  Nature,  and  all  the 
phenomena  of  both,  are  better  explained,  and  that  more 
of  their  facts  are  explained  and  correlated  by  that 
theory  than  by  any  other. 

But  there  are  others  who  hold  a  different  theory, 
and  who,  desiring  to  explain  and  find  out  what  Man  is, 
start  from  Man  himself.  There  are  two  classes  of  these 
persons,  and  they  differ  widely. 

One  is  the  speculative.  They  have  the  jjoetical,  and 
not  the  pr.;ctical,  disposition.  They  long  for  light,  not  on 
tlie  facts  of  matter,  but  on  those  of  thought  and  feeling. 
"What  is  the  end,"  they  say,  "and  what  the  source  of 
all  I  imagine  in  my  brain  and  heart  ?  Ideas  rise  within 
me,  and  passionate  emotions  thrill  me.  I  love  them 
and  pursue  them,  I  win  and  exhaust  their  good  and  joy, 
then  they  decay  and  fail.  Are  they  tlien  of  the  dust, — 
the  dust  to  which  my  body  shall  return  ?  I  would  fain 
think  not.  I  hear  of  a  God  who  made  me,  of  a  heaven 
and  a  hell  in  future ;  but  I  know  only  myself  and  the 
earth,  and  that  I  suffer  and  rejoice  in  the  present." 

Then  they  send  their  soul  wandering  into  the  invisi- 
ble to  search  for  an  answer;  and  it  comes  back  after 
long  speculation,  bearing  no  olive-l)ranch,  but  silent  and 
weary,  with  no  reply  npon  its  lips,  and  they  take  it  in 
and  say:  "Alas!  there  is  no  voice,  no  light.  I,  and 
only  I,  am  the  centre  of  the  universe.  I  myself  am 
God  and  Heaven  and  Hell.  God  is  the  name  I  use 
when  I  think  upon  my  Fate.  Heaven  is  the  image 
I  make  to  myself  of  my  fulfilled  desire.    Hell  is  the 


62 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


image  I  ci'eate  of  my  desire,  when,  powerless  to  fulfil 
itself,  it  still  goes  on  craving  and  consv^ming.  There  is 
no  reality  beyond  myself  that  answers  to  these  names. 
Tkey  are  but  pictures  in  the  dark  looking-glass  into  \\  liich 
I  gaze  when  I  look  outside  of  myself.  I  see  in  it,  it 
«  seems,  infinite  de])ths,  and  far,  far  away  in  them  dim 
shadows  seem  to  move.  But  the  mirror  is  only  a  thin 
surface  of  my  own  creation,  in  which  my  own  self  is 
reflected.  Itself  and  its  shadows  and  its  depths  are  all 
my  pliantasy.  And,  when  I  die,  the  glass  is  shattered 
and  the  images.  It  is  nothing,  it  tells  me  nothing,  be- 
yond it  there  is  notliing.  1  have  come  ^\■ande^ing  into 
this  world  I  know  )iot  why,  nor  whence.  All  day  long  I 
ask  what  I  am  and  whither  I  am  going,  and,  when  (driven 
by  the  desolateness  of  old  age  and  tbe  torment  of  decay) 
I  am  asking  it  most  bitterly,  I  am  suddenly  struck  down 
—  and  all  is  over. 

"  '  A  moment's  halt,  a  momentary  taste 
Of  Being  from  the  well  ainid  the  waste  ; 
And  lo  !  the  ])hantom  caravan  has  reached  — 
The  Nothing  it  set  out  from.    Oh,  make  haste  ! ' 

It  is  ghastly  ignorance,  and  it  Avere  well  I  could  cease  to 
torment  myself  about  it.  But  I  cannot.  I  cannot  help 
asking.  An  inward  passion  urges  me,  and  it  finds  its 
food  in  everything.  Never  for  one  moment  am  I  moved 
hy  a  great  thought  or  touched  by  a  deej)  feeling,  without 
tljis  greater  and  deeper  question  rising  and  appealing  to 
me  for  a  reply." 

Is  there  an  answer  ?  Well,  we  Christians  say  there  is, 
and  we  find  it  in  the  life  and  words  of  Christ.  If  he  is 
the  reiaresentative  and  ideal  of  Humanity,  and  if  what  he 


THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD  IN  MAN. 


63 


said  of  himself  as  sucli  be  true,  then  these  questions  are 
answered.  The  very  kernel  of  the  Incarnation  is  tliat 
God  and  Man  are  at  one  in  Christ,  and  Ciirist  luniself 
said  lliat  what  lie  Avas  liis  hrotlu  rs  w  ere  to  be, —  at  one 
Avitli  God.  It  was  as  3Iau  and  as  one  of  ns  tliat  he  said, 
"I  and  niy  Father  are  one."  It  was  as  one  of  us  that  ho 
said,  "  I  came  fortli  from  tlic  Fatlier,  and  am  come  into 
tiie  world :  again,  I  leave  tiie  Avoi-ld,  and  go  to  tlie 
Father."  It  was  as  the  ideal  Man  he  said,  "  The  Son 
can  do  nothing  of  himself  but  what  he  seeth  the  Father 
do,  for  what  tilings  soever  he  doeth  these  also  doeth  the 
Son  likewise  "  ;  it  was  as  such  he  said,  "  The  Father  that 
dwelleth  in  me,  he  doeth  the  works  "  ;  and,  "  My  doctrine 
is  not  mine,  but  his  that  sent  me."  It  was  as  man  he 
sai^l,  "  I  must  work  the  works  of  him  that  sent  me." 

If  these  things  be  true  of  us  men  as  they  were  true, 
Christ  said,  of  himself,  then  all  your  questions  are  an- 
swered. Whence  came  you"?  You  came  out  from  the 
Father.  Why  are  you  here  ?  To  work  the  woi-ks  of 
liim  that  sent  you.  What  are  you  ?  You  are  a  living 
child  of  God,  one  with  God,  so  dwelt  in  by  him  that 
your  works  are  his  and  your  doctrine  his.  AVhitlicr  are 
you  going?    You  leave  the  world,  and  go  to  tlie  Father. 

You  answer.  What  right  have  I  to  claim  for  myself  to 
be  that  which  Christ  was?  I  reply:  You  ha^■e  the  right 
he  has  given  you,  the  right  God  has  given  you  through 
him.  You  are  not  now  wholly  what  he  was :  you  are 
imperfect,  sinful,  struggling  against  error  and  tempta- 
tion ;  but,  still,  you  are  at  one  with  Christ,  by  right  and 
through  him  at  one  with  God  ;  and  by  and  by,  when  you 
are  wholly  redeemed  and  clean,  you  shall  be  in  fact  that 
which  you  are  now  by  right.    That  is  what  Christ  says 


64 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


himself.  He  liad  no  doubt  that  v^hat  lie  was  as  Man  all 
men  who  followed  him  should  be.  "  The  glory  which 
thou  gavest  me"— so  he  speaks,  ijraying  to  his  Father  — 
"I  have  given  them;  that  they  may  be  one,  even  as  we 
are  one  :  I  in  them,  and  thou  in  me,  that  they  may  be 
made  perfect  in  one." 

The  certainty  of  that  is  the  revelation  of  Pentecost. 
The  very  Spirit  of  God  dwells  in  the  soul  of  man  and  is 
his  life :  he  is  the  light  that  lighteth  every  man.  Be- 
lieve that  truth,  and  all  your  life  will  change.  You  will 
not  need  to  send  your  soul  into  the  infinite  to  find  God. 
You  will  find  him  in  your  heart ;  and,  finding  him,  you 
will  know,  far  more  certainly  than  you  know  any  fact  of 
matter,  whence  you  are  and  Avhat  you  are  and  whither 
you  are  going.  Weary  speculation  will  cease,  fruitless 
effort  will  become  fruitful  work :  all  you  think  and  do 
will  have  an  aim,  and  you  will  know  you  shall  reach  your 
aim.  And  when,  at  death,  you  stand  on  the  jieak  of  the 
mount  of  life,  and  earth  lies  beneath  you,  sleepmg  in  the 
mist,  you  shall  look  up  to  a  radiant  Heaven,  and  cry, 
stretching  forth  your  hands  in  utter  thankfulness  and  joy, 
"I  lea\e  the  world  and  go  to  the  Father,  my  Father,  to 
be  at  one  with  him  f()re\  er,  with  the  light  that  lighted 
me  when  I  came  into  the  world." 

That,  then,  is  the  answer  which  the  Spirit  of  God  in 
Christ  gi\  es  to  the  souls  that  cannot  as  yet  believe,  but 
must  speculate  on  life  and  death  and  eternity.  They  are 
speculations  that  ha-s  e  in  them  imagination  and  jjoetry. 
They  stir  the  emotions  of  those  who  make  them.  They 
are  prompted  by  passionate  thought,  and  they  kindle  it. 
They  bring  with  them  longing  which  lifts  a  man  above 
the  world,  and  often  indignation  against  God  which,  in 


THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD  IN  MAN. 


65 


the  stirriiiL;"  it  gives  tlic  soul,  lias  a  reflex  action  towarrl 
good  upon  it.  For  it  is  an  indignation  whieli  soon 
changes  into  love  of  God,  Avlien  the  idea  of  God  is 
changed.  At  least,  they  keej)  the  man  irom  sinking  into 
a  mere  intellectual  machine:  they  remove  him  from  the 
drudgery  into  which  the  desire  of  nothing  else  but  what 
is  called  practical  brings  its  followers  at  last. 

But  there  is  another  class  of  men  to-day,  who  do  not 
speculate  at  all.  They  do  not  send  their  souls  out  from 
themselves,  for  they  d<j  not  l^elieve  in  anything  like  a 
soul.  "  We  cannot  hold  it  in  our  hand,"  they  say,  "  nor 
l)rove  that  spirit  is  by  reasoning."  They  hear  of  a  Divine 
Light  and  Life  and  Spirit  in  them,  whom  men  call  G<^d  ; 
and  they  say  that  they  do  not  feel  it,  and  do  not  care  to 
feel  it.  They  will  not  sj^ecnlate  on  sul)jects  to  which 
they  see  no  end,  and  of  which  they  know  no  beginning. 
The  feelings  on  such  subjects  are  blind  guides,  and  tliey 
dim  the  dry  light  in  which  they  wish  to  work.  They 
allow  the  existence  of  conscience  as  now  felt,  they  allow 
tlie  existence  of  the  religious  feeling  in  man,  of  love  and 
aspiration  and  desire  for  continued  life;  but  they  do  not 
allow  that  tliese  are  spii-itual  powers  that  have  an  exist- 
ence of  their  own,  derived  to  us  from  a  S2)irit  who  loves 
us  and  gave  us  being.  They  stick  to  facts,  as  they  say; 
and  the  only  way  to  find  what  men  call  the  soul,  and  the 
feelings  it  is  said  to  i»ossess,  is  to  look  for  them  in  tlie 
vessels  and  the  nerves  and  the  matter  of  tlie  brain,  and 
in  the  movements  of  their  atoms,  and  they  grojje  for 
them  in  the  decay  of  the  dissecting-room  and  in  the  tort- 
ured tissues  of  animals.  "We  ha\e  not  found  the  soul," 
they  cry  :  "  it  is  not  there." 

No,  indeed  it  is  not;  and  you  will  never  find  it  there. 


66 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


Life  is  not  found  in  death  :  you  will  not  touch  the  incor- 
ru])tible  in  the  corruptible.  You  may  find  movements 
correlative  witli  thought,  but  not  the  moving  power  of 
thought, —  movements  correlative  with  the  desii'e  of  God, 
but  not  the  source  of  the  movements  or  of  the  desire. 
Never,  never  will  you  find  that  in  the  ceaseless  clash  of 
atoms. 

Then,  as  to  conscience  and  the  sense  of  religion  and 
belief  in  immortality,  they  must  be  sought  at  their  origin 
in  animals,  and  in  their  slow  growth  through  selected 
movements  of  matter  which  bec(mie  habitual  and  heredi- 
tary. There,  in  the  far  past  and  in  their  weakest  devel- 
o]>ments,  we  shall  find  out  A\'hat  conscience  and  religion 
and  intellect  and  love  tndy  are.  And  these  men  have 
made  their  theories,  and  they  are  not  pleasant  ones.  But 
whether  they  are  pleasant  does  not  much  matter,  if  they 
accounted  for  the  facts.  But  it  is  safe  to  say  that  at 
l^resent  they  do  not  ex})lain  conscience  or  genius  or  the 
love  of  a  cause  or  even  tlie  love  of  man  and  woman. 

And  we  who  look  on  ask,  Avith  some  wonder,  whether 
it  would  not  be  a  more  rational  method  of  finding  out 
what  conscience  and  genius  and  love  are  in  men,  if  we 
Avere  to  study  them  in  their  most  perfect  and  highest 
form  rather  than  in  their  imperfect  and  loAvest.  'No  one 
denies  that  they  haA'e  develojied  from  faint  origins,  but 
their  origins  Avill  be  better  knoAvn,  if  Ave  begin  to  study 
tlieni  from  Avhat  they  are  noAV. 

Look  at  conscience  as  it  rises  in  Luther,  Avhen  he  stood 
alone  against  the  Avorld  of  his  time,  and  clung  to  truth 
in  the  face  of  death.  Look  at  genius,  Avhen  it  sjjeaks  in 
Shakespeare's  tragedy,  Avhen  it  fills  the  heart  in  a  mas- 
ter's music.    Look  at  love,  when  in  Christ  it  sacrifices  the 


THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD  IN  MAX. 


G7 


■\vholo  of  life  for  the  sake  of  tlie  vast  concei^tion  of  bring- 
ing the  whole  race  to  God  ;  look  at  love  even  in  yourself, 
when  you  are  thrilled  with  the  beauty  of  the  world, 
when  you  feel  tliat  \<m  w<mld  gladly  die  for  the  maiden 
of  your  choice:  and  then  ask  yourself  if  you  can  conceive 
these  things  to  be  only  the  product  of  the  weaving  or  the 
clash  of  atoms, —  if  tln'yha\  e  come  to  tliis  height  and 
]io\ver  and  majesty  and  immortality,  to  this  oneness  with 
a  beauty  and  a  truth  Avhich  you  ai-e  forced  to  conceive  as 
liigher  tiian  they,  by  the  slow  selection  of  advantageous 
atomic  movements. 

It  is  when  most  distressed  Avith  the  noise  of  those 
wlio  bray  tlie  love  and  thought  and  conscience  of  men 
in  the  mortar  of  their  analysis  that  in  a  pause  of  their 
unmusical  toil  we  hear  with  exquisite  delight  these 
ancient  words:  "In  him  was  life;  and  the  life  was 
the  light  of  men.  That  was  the  true  Light,  which 
lighteth  every  man  tliat  cometh  into  the  world."  For 
at  least  the  truth  in  them  is  an  adequate  cause  for  tlie 
results  we  obsei-ve.  It  accounts  for  the  vast  phenomena 
of  the  moral,  S2)iritual,  imaginative,  and  passionate  ele- 
ments in  man.  The  otiier  theory  does  not  account  for 
them,  is  utterly  inadequate  to  the  facts. 

Conscience  is  not  the  growth  of  liuman  judgments 
alone:  it  is  the  voice  of  an  Eternal  Riglit  within  us, 
which  comes  to  us  from  a  living  Righteousness  without 
us.  Its  source  in  Eternal  Right  is  beyond  Humanity: 
it  is  throned  in  the  Being  of  God  forever.  When 
we  have  put  aside  some  wrong  with  a  mighty  effort, 
and  feel,  after  the  first  agony,  the  high  sense  of  noble 
conquest,  the  deep  joy  Avithin  us  is  not  only  that  we 
have  won  our  own  apjjroval :  it  is  the  joy  of  being 


68 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


nearer  to  the  eternal  Goodness  wlio  loves  ns,  of  feeling 
that  he  himself  has  wrought  with  us  in  the  conquest. 
When  we  are  conscious  of  the  strong  bitterness  of 
remorse,  it  is  not  only  that  we  liave  sinned  against 
man  that  tortures  us:  it  is  that  we  have  exiled  our- 
selves for  a  time  from  the  Father  of  our  si)irils.  "O, 
cleanse  thou  me,"  we  say,  "  from  my  secret  faults." 
"Father,  I  have  sinned  against  thee."  And  in  that 
conviction  lies  our  truest  chance  of  rei:)entance,  our 
best  ground  for  repairing  the  evil  we  have  wrought 
against  our  fellow-man. 

Genius  is  not  the  haj32)y  conjuncture  of  material 
elements  in  a  man.  It  is  the  breath  of  the  intellect  of 
God,  the  thrill  of  God's  heart  in  us,  the  inspiration  of 
his  beauty.  When  the  poet  creates,  it  is  the  creative 
Spirit  of  God  that  breathes  into  the  men  and  women 
whom  he  makes,  and  bids  them  live  and  love.  When 
the  artist  paints,  the  soul  in  his  picture  that  speaks  to 
us  is  the  living  beauty  and  love  of  God.  When  the 
musician  makes  the  heart  i:)aint  a  liundred  images  of 
man  and  Nature,  and  gives  to  each  image  its  OM"n  troop 
of  emotions,  it  is  the  changing,  feeling  Sjiirit  of  God 
that  changes  and  feels  within  us. 

Love  is  not  the  jjleasant  thrill  of  atomic  movements, 
rejieated  till  they  become  fixed  in  a  certain  direction. 
Love  is  God  hnnself  in  iis,  as  the  desire  of  good.  It 
is  the  longing  after  imre  happiness  in  others.  It  is  the 
desire  of  beauty,  in  God,  in  Nature,  in  man  or  woman. 
It  is  the  generative,  productive,  creative  power  in  us. 
Its  power  is  itself  the  Word  of  God  in  us;  and  we  may 
truly  say  of  it,  in  all  its  noble  forms  in  us,  what  John 
said  of  the  i>erf ect  love  of  God,  "  All  thmgs  are  made 


THE  LIGHT  OF  GOD  IN  MAN. 


69 


by  it,  and  Avitliout  it  is  iK)t  anything  made  that  is 
made."  For  God  is  love,  and  where  it  is  true  in  us  it 
is  God  in  us.  "He  that  dwelleth  in  love  dwelleth  in 
God,  and  God  in  him." 

Yes,  these  things  are  true;  and  it  is  great  joy  to 
know  and  feel  that  every  good  and  perfect  gift  cometh 
doMU  from  tlie  Father  of  Lights,  with  whom  is  no 
"v  ariableness,  neither  shadow  of  turning.  For  then  we 
know  these  tilings  shall  not  die.  The  right  we  strug- 
gled for  and  won  is  not  lost  in  the  gra\  e.  It  is  ours 
in  God,  a  treasure  laid  up  for  us  in  the  rigliteous  world. 
The  beauty  and  intellect  and  noble  passion  which  genius 
threw  into  form  do  not  decay  with  our  dust,  and  enter 
into  the  unconscious  being  of  the  rocks  and  trees.  They 
abide  and  grow  forever  in  us  and  for  us,  adding  beauty 
to  beauty,  thought  to  thought,  feeling  to  feeling,  and  are 
expressed  forever  in  more  and  more  perfect  form.  And 
Love  is  above  all  immortal.  Our  childish  love  of  God, 
the  early  praise  of  joy  we  ga-\  e  him,  our  later  desire  of 
good,  our  longing  to  know  his  peace, —  this  does  not  die. 
God,  Avho  is  its  life,  has  made  it  move  in  us,  keeps  it  in 
our  hearts  from  dying,  touches  us  through  it  into  effort, 
and  leads  us  by  it  at  last  to  fulfil  our  true  life  in  unbroken 
love  of  him.  Nor  does  our  human  love  die.  It  has  its 
defect  and  its  excess,  its  glory  and  its  folly,  its  constancy 
and  its  failure  :  the  subjects  of  it  may  lose  their  hold  on 
us,  but  all  that  has  been  nobly  felt  and  truly  thought  in 
it  endures ;  and  it  will  purify  itself  in  us,  and  we  shall 
know  by  and  by  that  it  was  of  God. 

Nor  does  death  divide  us  from  love,  or  from  the  pity, 
the  passion,  the  forgiveness  which  we  have  to  give  or  to 
receive,  the  longing  for,  or  the  peace  of  finding  those 


70 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


who  have  gone  away.  For  God's  Spirit  is  in  the  living 
heart  that  waits  for  us,  and  in  ours ;  and  its  unity  makes 
our  unity.  The  liglit  in  which  those  who  have  gone 
away  abide  is  the  same  that  abides  in  our  hearts,  and 
that  light  is  the  light  of  love.  Oh,  desolate  indeed  is  he 
who  in  the  hour  of  some  wild  sorrow,  when  life  crashes 
round  him,  and  earth  has  nothing  left  to  give,  has  no 
belief  in  hearts  that  wait  for  liim  in  a  kinder  and  more 
peaceful  world,  Avho  sees  nothing  in  the  dead  but  dust, 
who  looks  for  the  heart  that  beat  for  him,  and  the  eyes 
that  he  gazed  into  to  find  comfort,  and  the  h;md  that 
made  his  supjiort,  only  in  the  grass  that  waves  above  the 
grave  or  the  wind  that  hurries  by  that  haunted  resting- 
place.  But  there  is  some  joy  even  in  bitter  pain,  some 
comfort  which  we  know  will  arise  ere  long  and  sit  with 
us  hand  in  hand,  when  we  think  that  the  all-indwelling 
spirit  of  God's  Love  moves  in  us,  and  in  the  husband, 
the  wife,  the  children,  the  brothers,  sisters,  and  friends 
that  have  passed  bej'ond  the  grave. 

These,  then,  are  some  of  the  human  asjjects  which  the 
revelation  of  to-day  presents  to  our  hearts,  weary  with 
speculation,  still  more  weary  of  the  claim  of  science  —  of 
some  science  at  least  —  to  rob  us  of  our  hopes,  to  j^ai'- 
alyze  our  faith  in  the  immortality  of  the  heart,  the  con- 
science, and  the  intellect. 

If,  then,  these  things  be  true, —  if  there  be  a  spirit  of 
goodness,  of  genius,  and  of  love  ;  if  that  sj)irit  be  God's 
Spirit,  and  he  abide  in  us,  our  true  and  faithful  Light  in 
this  dark  world  of  sorrow,  failure,  and  decay, —  what  is, 
what  ought  to  be,  our  daily  life  and  effort  ?  It  is  to  walk 
worthy  of  him  who  dwells  in  us,  to  resist  his  effort  in  us 
no  longer,  to  throw  ourselves  into  union  with  his  right- 
eousness, his  ideas,  and  his  love. 


THE  LIGHT  OP  GOD  IN  MAN. 


71 


What  arc  the}-?  "What  do  \vc  know  of  God's  good- 
ness, his  tlioughts,  his  love?  We  know  thetu  througli 
the  life  and  work  of  Christ  our  Saviour.  Tlie  Spii-it  in 
us  is  the  same  Spirit  tliat  M  as  in  him,  and  tlie  work  the 
Spirit  does  in  us  is  to  awake  in  us  tlie  rememl)rance  and 
the  imitation  of  Christ.  "  Tlie  Comforter,  Aviiich  is  the 
Holy  Ghost,  whom  tlie  Fatlier  will  send  in  my  name,  lie 
shall  teach  y<ni  all  things,  and  bring  all  things  to  your 
remembrance  whatsoe\  er  I  have  done  unto  you." 

The  Goodness  we  are  to  pursue  and  make  our  om'u  is 
the  goodness  of  Christ,  the  same  fair  human  goodness 
that  breathed  and  inspired,  labored  and  endured  in  the 
Holy  Land,  that  since  then  has  lived  in  all  the  good  and 
pure  of  earth.  It  was  a  A-ery  simple  goodness :  no  one 
can  mistake  it ;  the  poorest  and  most  ignorant  may 
understand  and  follow  it.  It  was  loving-kindness  and 
sweet  gentleness,  and  the  healing  of  sickness  and  sor- 
row ;  it  was  jiurity  of  heart  and  belief  in  the  goodness 
of  men ;  it  was  truth,  and  such  love  of  truth  as  the 
world  has  not  seen  again ;  it  was  the  giving  of  truth  to 
all ;  it  was  the  glad  acknowledgment  of  truth  wherever 
he  found  it;  it  was  the  abiding  of  all  his  life  in  bis 
Father,  so  that  his  thoughts  were  his  Father's  thoughts, 
his  work  and  his  whole  being  God's  work  and  being;  it 
was  unbroken  communion  with  Divine  Righteousness, 
and  the  unbroken  effort  to  make  the  communion  he  pos- 
sessed with  God  the  possession  of  men.  There,  I  say, 
is  our  ideal.  That  is  what  the  inward  Light  in  us  is 
striving  to  accomplish  in  us. 

And  in  intellect,  genius,  the  work  of  thought,  what 
does  God's  Spirit  in  us  mean  for  us?  The  answer  is 
also  in  his  life  ^\•ho  has  given  us  the  Spirit.  'Wliat  was 
the  work  of  his  genius?    It  was  not  the  pandering  to  a 


72 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


popular  cry,  not  the  astonishing  of  tlie  world,  not  the 
desire  of  applause,  not  the  sacrifice  of  gifts  to  the  Avin- 
ning  of  money,  not  the  solitary  jileasure  of  increasing 
knowledge  or  of  refining  feeling.  It  was  the  firm  con- 
ceiving of  great  ideas,  useful  for  the  human  race  ;  it  was 
the  shaping  and  rounding  of  these  into  instruments  that 
men  could  use  for  the  advance  and  saving  of  the  world ; 
it  Avas  the  entirely  faitliful  and  resolute  Avorking  out  of 
these  in  life,  it  Avas  death  for  them  at  last ;  it  Avas  belief 
in  tlicir  immortality  and  joy,  in  their  resurrection  in  men 
and  nations,  that  had  seemed  to  lose  them,  in  their  eter- 
nal abiding  in  men  by  his  Spirit. 

It  was  not  only  the  conceiving  of  thoughts,  but  the 
creating  of  men.  Christ  made  new  men  by  the  power 
of  intellect.  He  used,  that  is,  all  the  poAver  thought 
gave  him  for  the  jjurpose  of  making  useless  and  dead 
characters  into  liA'ing  and  useful  ones.  He  was  the 
artist  of  men.  He  saAV  what  their  intellect,  feeling,  poAv- 
ers,  and  senses  could  become.  He  saAV  the  work  they 
Avere  capable  of,  and  liis  art-work  Avas  to  bring  men  to 
the  ideal  God  had  of  them.  It  was  true  creation,  and 
no  phrase  is  truer  than  this:  "If  any  man  be  in  Christ, 
he  is  a  ncAV  creature."  Or  this,  Avhich  more  fully  ex- 
presses the  thought :  "  Created  in  Christ  Jesus  unto  good 
Avorks,  Avhich  God  hath  before  ordained  that  we  should 
Avalk  in  them." 

That  is  the  Avork  of  his  spirit  in  us,  and  that  should  be 
our  AVork  among  men.  Whatever  thought  or  power  of 
thought  God  has  given  us  should  first  of  all  be  given  to 
these  two  things, —  the  conceiA'ing  of  ideas  useful  for  the 
true  progress  of  man,  and  the  AVork  of  bringing  those 
Ave  meet  up  to  the  ideal  that  God  has  of  them,  the  crea- 
tion of  ncAV  men. 


THE  LUIHT  OF  GOD  IN  MAN. 


73 


And,  lastly,  whut  is  the  love  wliieli  the  Spirit  calls  on 
US  to  have  and  to  live  by?  That  is  contained  in  a  few 
words  of  Christ:  "Love  one  another  as  I  have  loved 
you."  It  is  no  longer  the  statement  of  the  old  law, 
"Love  your  neighbor  as  yourself":  it  is  "Love  your 
neighbor  as  Christ  loved  you," — that  is,  far,  far  more 
than  yourself,  more  than  your  joy,  more  than  your  peace, 
more  than  your  wealth,  more  than  your  knowledge, 
more  than  youv  hopes,  more  than  your  life.  Die  for  the 
sake  of  others.  What  can  be  added  to  that?  It  is 
that  and  nothing  else  that  God's  S]>irit  asks  of  you. 
But  it  is  not  without  its  reward, —  not  a  selfish  reward, 
not  the  wild  hajjpiness  of  earth,  not  anything  which  will 
make  you  love  yourself.  It  is  the  reward,  or,  rather,  not 
the  reward,  but  the  necessary  fruit  of  the  seed  you  sow. 
It  is  union  with  the  life  of  God,  union  Avith  immortal 
love.  It  is  to  be  at  one  with  the  spirit  of  the  love  which 
says,  "It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive";  it  is 
to  be  able  through  love  to  lose  yourself  in  living  union 
with  all  that  has  beauty  in  Nature,  with  all  that  has 
nobleness  in  man,  with  the  whole  universe  of  God,  with 
God  himself.  Oh,  what  life  shall  then  be  ours, —  life 
which,  in  losing  self,  finds  itself  in  union  with  the  ever- 
beating  Life  which  makes,  as  it  beats  with  love,  the 
whole  creation!  And  what  light!  At  last,  the  light 
within  us,  hidden  now,  and  dimmed  too  often  by  our 
sin  and  failure,  shall  become  the  light  in  which  our 
whole  being  shines  and  lives.  Tlie  Sun  of  Righteous- 
ness,  the  Sun  of  intellectual  Truth,  the  Sun  of  perfect 
Love, —  these  three  will  mix  their  glory  into  one,  and  in 
it  we  shall  abide, —  conscience,  mind,  and  heart  illu- 
minated and  illuminating,  eternal  light  our  own,  for  God 
is  ours  forever. 


THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST. 


1876. 

"The  grace  of  our  Lor  J  Jesus  Christ  be  with  yon  all.  Amen."  — 
Revelation  xxii.,  21. 

It  is  the  last  text  in  the  Bible,  and  it  fits  Avell  the  last 
day  of  the  year.  It  is  ■well  we  should  take  a  blessing  to 
ourselves,  or  at  least  try  to  fancy  that  it  may  be  ours,  for 
we  need  it  sorely  on  this  day.  I,t  may  have  been  a  year 
of  happiness  to  some  of  you,  and  I  AvoiUd  gladly  think 
so;  for,  in  the  troublesome  world  in  which  we  live,  the 
best  hai)piness  possible  to  us  is  to  know  that  happiness  is 
a  reality.  And  those  of  you  whom  God  lias  made  happy, 
and  who  have  been  Avorthy  of  your  hapi)iness,  ought  to 
be  very  thankful  to  lam,  and  should  cherish  the  memory 
of  your  happiness  and  lay  it  by  in  a  treasure  chamber, 
that,  when  the  evil  days  come,  you  may  look  at  it  and 
say,  "Then,  I  had  joy,  and  I  can  taste  its  sweetness  still: 
I  have  failed,  but  my  past  delight  receives  me  into  an 
everlasting  habitation."  Therefore,  be  grateful  for  your 
joy,  and  keep  it  well.  It  has  been  a  blessing ;  but,  though 
you  have  been  blest,  you  will  be  none  the  Avorse  for  a 
heavenly  blessing  such  as  I  lay  to  your  heai-ts  to-day  out 
of  this  sacred  book.  For  surely  all  earthly  bliss  is  made 
more  beautiful  if  Ave  can  link  it  to  the  grace  of  the  Lord 


THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST. 


75 


It  may  have  been  a  year  of  misery  to  some  of  yon. 
You  may  liavo  lost  out  of  your  life  one  wlio  made  all  its 
delight  and  all  its  interest,  whose  sharing  in  your  work 
made  that  work  worth  doing,  whose  sharing  in  your  life 
lifted  it  above  dull  commoni)lace,  in  whom  were  hid  yeai's 
of  associated  and  loving  memory.  And  now  your  work 
is  done  only  because  it  is  duty,  and  your  life  lived  only 
because  it  is  coM'ardly  to  die.  Or  it  may  not  be  loss  of 
love,  but  loss  of  yoiu'  best  self  that  has  made  the  year  a 
misery.  AYIiat  shall  it  in-ofit  a  man  if  he  gain  the  whole 
world  and  lose  himself?  It  is  a  greater  misery  e\-en  than 
loss  of  one  whom  we  have  loved,  to  look  back  and  feel 
that  in  the  months  gone  by  some  quality,  some  hope,  some 
belief,  has  been  lost  out  of  the  character  which  can  never 
be  restored  to  it.  Something  else  may  be  gained  in  the 
future,  but  not  that:  something  betfer  maybe  gained, 
but  your  old  companion,  which  made  you  so  hapi)y  or  so 
good,  is  dead.  Again  and  again  in  life,  irreparable  losses 
take  place.  The  door  is  shut,  and  its  clang-to  sounds 
like  the  A'oice  of  doom  itself. 

While,  then,  you  are  shut  out  in  the  darkness,  and 
before  another  door  opens,  beyond  which  you  may  find  a 
new  light,  and  gain  a  new  power  in  yourself  which  will 
give  energy  to  life  and  fulness  to  character,  your  time  is 
a  time  of  misery.  It  will  be  well  for  you  who  are  now 
sufferhig  this,  to  whom  this  year  closes  in  that  jiain,  if 
you  ha-\  e  the  heart  or  the  right  to  think  ujion  this  bless- 
ing. Some  of  you  may  do  so  even  now;  and  the  grace 
of  Christ  may  l)e  already  giving  you,  through  its  tender 
influence,  the  power  to  lead  a  new  life.  Oli,  throw  vour 
Avhole  soul  into  union  with  it,  and  seek  the  blessedness  of 
a  life  with  him  !    Others  may  feel  that  as  yet  they  have 


76 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


neither  part  nor  lot  Avith  him,  that  they  have  no  right  to 
his  gracious  kindness,  or  they  may  be  too  storm-tossed  in 
tlieir  hearts  to  be  able  to  realize  that  peace  can  ever  come 
again.  I  bid  them  not  desj^air.  There  is  only  one  irre- 
mediable sin.  It  is  the  sin  of  Judas.  It  is  despair  of 
forgiveness.  Despair  of  forgiA  eness !  It  is  irrational. 
For  how  much  do  we  forgive  ;  and  shall  not  God,  who 
is  greater  tlian  we,  forgi\  e  more  than  we  do?  Take  the 
blessing  even  with  all  but  a  hopeless  soul.  Lay  it  like 
healing  dew  on  your  heart,  and  ere  long  it  will  do  its 
work. 

But,  after  all,  most  of  you,  as  you  look  back,  do  not 
see  unmixed  joy  or  unmixed  sorrow  in  the  year  so  nearly 
gone.  Life  is,  for  the  most  part,  a  varied  web.  It  is 
woven  of  glow  and  gloom,  thunder  purjjle  and  shining 
gold.  Even  in  the' midst  of  our  darkest  days,  deep  joy 
rushed  in ;  even  that  which  we  now  most  sorrow  for 
had  in  it,  when  we  lived  in  it,  inexplicable  pleasure. 
Often,  as  we  look  back,  that  Avhich  was  our  happiness  in 
hours  gone  by  —  so  strangely  mixed  is  life  —  is  now  our 
tragedy,  and  that  which  was  our  tragedy  is  now  our 
blessedness.  And,  on  the  whole,  the  greater  number  of 
us  have  more  joy  than  sorrow,  though  in  the  weight  of 
sorrow  we  forget  the  multitude  of  joy.  For  sorrows 
keep  together,  while  joys  are  dispersed  through  life,  and 
in  the  centre  of  sorrow  we  cannot  recall  the  joys  that 
are  scattered  all  over  the  circle  of  life  Think  a  little 
less  of  your  sorrows  and  more  of  your  joys  on  this  day. 
For  the  joys  will  make  you  gr.ateful,  and  gratitude  is  in 
itself  one  of  the  most  beautiful  ]>leasures  of  the  soul. 
And,  being  grateful,  you  can  take  this  blessing  to  your- 
self and  make  it  yours ;  for  part  of  the  grace  of  the  Lord 
Jesus  is  to  have  a  grateful  heart. 


THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHKIST.  77 


It  is  Avell,  then,  this  day  to  seek  a  blessing.  For,  in- 
deed, unless  one  is  very  young  and  very  strong,  and  little 
worn  by  life,  Ave  need  some  blessing.  Dwell  as  we  will 
on  the  brighter  side  of  things,  life  is  very  hard,  and  men 
and  women  are  hard  on  one  another,  and  we  ourselves 
are  growing  hard,  and  that  is  the  worst  of  all.  We  need 
something  to  softefi,  in  no  enfeebling  way,  the  hardness 
of  life  and  of  men  and  of  our  OAvn  heart.  And  most  of 
the  Ijlessings  we  seek  of  our  own  will  weaken  our  souls, 
and  in  the  weakening  make  us  harder  in  the  future.  But 
the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  if  we  could  win  it 
and  take  it,  softens  all  things  by  making  us  stronger 
toward  goodness  and  truth,  and  righteousness  and  love. 

What  is  it?  What  is  his  grace?  That  is  our  study 
to-day.  Whatever  it  is,  it  does  not  come  from  one  who 
is  ignorant  of  all  we  need.  He  has  known  to  the  full 
the  weight  of  human  suffering,  and  the  blessing  of  his 
grace  that  is  with  us  is  brought  home  to  us  by  that 
knowledge.  He  can  comfort  because  he  knows.  He 
has  known  what  temjstation  is,  and  can  feel  with  the 
agony  of  our  resistance,  an<I  through  that  Avith  our 
Aveakness.  He  has  not  known  remorse  or  the  loss  of 
good ;  but,  through  his  infinite  pain  in  contact  Avith  sin, 
and  his  infinite  pity  for  those  enthralled  by  it,  he  can 
understand  our  unliappiness  in  guilt.  By  knoA\"ledge  of 
sorroAV%  he  can  Ijring  blessing  to  sorroAV. 

Nor  has  he  knoAvn  joy  less.  In  early  life,  as  boy  and 
youth,  he  kncAV  all  our  simple  and  pure  joys.  In  man- 
hood, Avhen  he  first  Avent  out  to  the  Avorld,  avc  have 
often  traced  the  joy  of  enthusiasm  in  his  work.  In 
later  days,  these  only  liA'ed  in  memory ;  but  another  joy 
took  their  place, — the  mighty  joy  of  universal  love,  the 


78 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


joy  of  giving  uyi  all  things  for  all  men, —  that  Mondorful 
and  mystic  joy  which  ^ye  faintly  realize  whenever,  out 
of  the  dejiths  of  personal  suffering,  we  rise  into  the  glo- 
rious life  of  self-surrender  because  we  love.  In  that  joy 
of  Christ's,  all  suffering  died ;  and  he  who  reached  thus 
the  uttermost  human  joy  can,  through  knoMdedge  of  it, 
give  us  the  blessing  of  joy.  But  his  fitness  to  give 
comes  not  only  of  knowledge  of  our  need,  but  also  of 
his  victory  over  all  that  is  evil  or  weak  in  our  need.  He 
overcame,  through  holy  will  and  through  love  of  others, 
sorrow,  temptation,  and  sin,  went  through  their  depths 
and  came  forth  their  conqueror.  It  is  the  Victor  who 
can  give  grace  and  strength  to  those  whom  the  same  foes 
attack.  That  gift  is  not  in  the  victim's  power.  He  who 
lets  himself  be  enslaved  by  the  pains  of  life,  he  who 
allows  sorrow  or  sin  to  make  him  effortless,  can  ne\er 
o'ive  or  do  good  to  others.  No  more  than  a  coward 
can  insjDire  the  Avar  can  he  inspire  or  help  his  fellow- 
men,  and  that  is  his  worst  punishment  and  his  worst 
degradation.  Christ  can  give  inspiration,  can  bless,  and 
give  of  his  power  because  lie  mastered  the  evil  forces  of 
life.  Xone  have  ever  done  that  so  conijiletely,  but 
many  can  do  it  in  his  spirit.  And  those  who  do  can 
help  and  bless  their  fellows  in  pro])ortiou  to  their  vic- 
tory. Remember  that  this  day,  you  who  are  in  warfare 
with  pain  or  guilt.  You  will  be  able  to  bring  grace 
and  blessing  t  j  others  in  the  future,  whatever  your  pain 
be  now,  if  you  con<[uer  it.  And,  in  order  to  conquer, 
win  his  grace  who  has  conquered,  and  who  will  give  it 
to  you. 

That  grace  is,  first,  kindness,  tlie  good-will  of  love.  It 
is  usual  to  sj^eak  of  the  grace  of  Christ  as  a  s]>iritual  gift 


THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST. 


79 


"vvhic'li  is  foinmunicated  to  us,  as  the  fuA'or  .and  good-will 
which  he  bestows.  But  tliough  that  way  of  looking  at 
the  term  "the  grace  of  Clirist"  is  true  enough,  yet  it 
forgets,  or  keeps  out  of  siglit,  the  fact  tliat,  to  give  it,  he 
must  ha^e  it;  and  the  first  thing  at  least  we  are  to  look 
to,  and  the  tlnng  wliich  is  usually  left  out,  is  the  grace 
of  Jesus  Christ  himself.  It  was  his  own  before  it  is 
ours.  The  first  meaning  of  the  words  then  is  "the  lov- 
ing-kindness Avhich  beh)nged  to  Christ,  which  formed 
part  of  his  character,  be  with  you,  and  form  part  of 
yours."  And  that  is  a  much  more  practical  way  of 
talking,  and  more  to  be  understood,  than  speaking  of  a 
kind  of  vague  supernatural  gift  the  exact  sense  of  which 
we  cannot  understand. 

^Yhat  that  loving-kindness,  that  grace,  was,  lies  before 
you  in  his  life.  It  is  old,  simple,  gracious  human  love 
raised  to  its  greatest  height  and  tenderness.  It  is  the 
showing  forth  of  all  those  sweet  and  beautiful  qualities 
"which  make  liome  and  social  life  so  dear,  and  the  sliow- 
ing  forth  of  them  in  j^erfection.  It  is  the  filial  tender- 
ness which  laid  down  the  consciousness  of  genius  and  all 
its  impulses  for  thirty  years  at  the  feet  of  his  mother  in 
a  quiet  and  silent  life,  and  which  won  her  jjondering  and 
passionate  love.  It  is  the  penetrating  love  which  saw 
into  the  character  of  his  friends,  and  made  them  believe 
in  their  own  capacity  for  greatness,  which  led  men  like 
Peter  and  J<»hn  and  .Janies  to  find  out  and  love  one  an- 
other, wliich  bound  his  followers  together  in  a  love  that 
outlasted  death.  It  is  the  tender  insight  which  saw  into 
the  publican's  heart,  which,  when  the  sinner  drew  near 
in  tears,  believed  in  her  repentance  and  exalted  her  into 
a  saint,  which  had  compassion  on  the  multitude  and  on 


80 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


the  weariness  of  ;i  few,  wliicli  wept  over  Jerusalem  and 
over  Lazanis,  which  ne%'er  failed  to  strike  the  right 
chord  even  with  souls  so  ignorant  as  the  Avoman  of  Sa- 
maria, whicli  in  all  human  life  and  the  movement  of  its 
passions  and  hopes  and  faiths  did,  said,  and  thought  the 
loving  and  just  thing  at  the  right  moment,  witliout  do- 
ing or  saying  the  weak  thing.  Thiiik  of  it  all,  you  who 
know  the  story;  and  an  image  of  the  grace  of  Clirist  as 
loving-kindness  will  grow  before  your  soul.  And  it  will 
be  strange  if  you  do  not,  ravished  with  tlie  sight,  say: 
"Let  that  blessed  power  be  mine  in  life.  May  the  grace 
of  the  Lord  Jesus  be  with  me."  It  is  no  theological 
mystery  Avhich  you  ask  for  then  :  you  ask  that  he  may 
give  you  his  strong  and  tender  human  lo\  e ;  you  ask 
not  that  he  may  give  you  something  new,  but  that  he 
may  strengthen  and  emioble  all  that  you  know  is  most 
beautiful  in  your  nature  and  most  likely  to  make  you 
beautiful  toward  }'0ur  fellow-men.  It  is  a  blessed  thing 
to  ask  for  and  to  live  for  in  the  coming  year,  for  it  will 
make  your  life  a  blessing. 

But  there  is  more  in  it  than  this.  Human  love,  left 
alone,  sjiends  itself  only  on  those  near  to  us,  or  on  those 
that  love  us  in  return,  and,  in  its  fonn  of  kindness  and 
pity,  on  these  whom  we  compassionate.  Kept  within  a 
narrow  circle,  it  tends  to  have  familv  or  a  social  selfish- 
ness. Given  only  to  those  who  suffer,  it  tends  to  become 
seK-satisfied.  To  be  perfect,  it  ought  to  reach,  through 
frank  forgiveness,  those  who  injure  us;  through  inter- 
est in  the  interests,  ideas,  and  movements  of  human  l^rog- 
ress,  those  who  are  beyond  our  own  circle,  in  our  nation, 
nay,  even  in  the  world;  and  finally  all  men,  those  even 
who  are  our  bitterest  foes,  through  desire  that  they 
should  have  good  ami  l)e  good. 


THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST. 


81 


It  was  the  very  glory  of  the  grace  of  Christ,  as  love, 
that  it  rose  into  this  wonderful  height  and  universality. 
No  act  for  his  truest  friend  or  mother  Avas  more  mtense 
in  feeling  than  tliat  act  in  which  he  laid  down  his  life  for 
his  enemies.  No  love  for  John  or  Peter  was  greater 
than  the  love  which  devoted  his  Avliole  life  to  the  salva- 
tion of  the  world,  of  men  of  whom  he  knew  notlung  per- 
sonally. There  was,  tlien,  a  motive  power  behind  his 
natural  human  love,  which  lifted  it  into  a  diviner  region, 
which  made  it  Godlike  in  forgiveness.  Godlike  in  its 
rush  out  of  the  particular  into  the  universal.  What  was 
that  motive?  If  we  can  find  it,  we  shall  know  the 
very  root  and  inspiration  of  the  grace  of  Christ.  It 
is  easy  to  find.  It  is  written  in  everything  he  said,  but 
nowhere  is  it  written  more  clearly  than  in  the  first  words 
of  his  Prayer.  When  he  taught  us  to  jJray  "Our  Fa- 
ther," he  told  us  that  it  was  his  conviction  that  all  men 
were  children  of  God,  and  that  necessarily  all  were  broth- 
ers one  of  another.  It  was  easy  for  him  to  forgive  a 
brother,  even  were  he  an  enemy.  It  was  easy  for  him  to 
die  for  unknown  men,  if  they  were  brothers.  Christ  felt 
it  to  be  an  utterly  beautiful  and  joyful  thing  to  love  the 
sons  of  God, —  the  sons  of  him  from  whom  he  drew  his 
mission,  to  whom  he  owed  his  love,  from  whom  came 
all  the  souls  for  whom  he  died.  All  men  were  infinitely 
precious  and  divine  in  Christ's^  sight,  for  he  saw  them 
all  consciously  and  unconsciously  going  into  the  out- 
stretched arms  of  God.  Therefore,  he  could  not  help 
loving  them  all. 

That  is  the  grace  of  Christ, —  the  loving-kindness  of 
Jesus, —  the  human  love  i-aised  into  the  divine  without 
losing  one  touch  of  its  humanity,  save  only  as  light  is 


82 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


lost  in  greater  light.  I  jiray  that  this  grace  of  Christ 
be  with  you  all, —  the  grace  of  natural  love  lifted  into 
divine  and  universal  lo\  e  through  faith  in  the  Father- 
hood of  God.  It  is  Christ's  to  give  because  he  had  it, 
and  when  we  have  it  we  can  give  it  also.  Gain  it  and 
give  it,  and  you  will  be  blessed  and  a  blessing. 

Secondly,  grace  has  another  meaning  other  than  lov- 
ing-kindness. It  means  the  kind  of  beauty  we  express  by 
the  word  "  charm  "  ;  and  in  this  sense  we  may  translate 
the  text,  "  Tlic  beautiful  charm  of  Clirist  l>e  M-ith  you 
all."  It  is  the  sense  in  which  a  Greek  would  have  loved 
to  take  the  words,  and  they  truly  bear  that  meaning. 
What  was  that  charm  ?  It  was  that  of  harmonj^  of  char- 
acter, the  musical  subordination  and  accord  of  all  the 
qualities  and  powers  of  his  nature,  so  that  the  whole 
impression  made  was  one  of  exquisite  and  various  order 
in  lovely  and  living  movement.  It  is  owing  to  this  that 
of  all  the  images  of  history  none  is  so  unique  and  clear 
and  attractive  as  that  of  Christ.  Its  grace  in  this  sense 
is  jjerfeet,  and  that  is  its  inner  Sj^irit. 

In  outward  action,  it  showed  itself  in  many  delicate 
and  lovely  ways.  Its  loveliest  form  is  in  sensitiveness 
to  feeling, —  the  sensitiveness  we  find  in  all  his  A\-a}-s  with 
men  and  women.  Do  you  remember  how,  wlien  the 
world-worn  Pharisee  expressed  his  scorn  of  tlie  sinful 
woman,  Clirist  felt  her  boundless  love,  and  said,  "Her 
sins,  which  are  many,  are  forgiven;  for  she  loved  much"; 
how,  when  Mary  sat  at  his  feet  and  was  blamed  by  Mar- 
tha, he  alone  saw  love  and  rightness  of  choice  in  her 
silence ;  how,  when  the  rude  utilitarian  saw  waste  in  the 
extravagant  love  which  lavished  on  him  the  precious 
spikenard,  he  accepted  it,  not  for  its  extravagance,  but 


THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST. 


88 


for  its  passion;  liow,  when  Potcr  had  sinned  Dy  a  three- 
fold treaciiery,  lie  believed  in  the  repentance,  and  only 
gave  one  look  of  sore  and  loving  reproach  ;  how,  when 
he  was  dying,  he  provided  for  his  friend  a  mother,  and 
for  his  mother  a  son?  What  charm,  what  grace  in  them 
all !  And  their  beauty  could  not  stand  alone.  That 
kind  of  exquisite  sensitiveness  tlowered  through  the 
Avhole  of  his  life  with  men.  It  was  his  grace,  and  all 
felt  its  charm. 

Nor  is  it  less  seen  in  his  speech  than  in  his  act.  It  is 
impossible  always  to  explain  in  what  i>erfect  literary 
charm  consists  ;  but  one  thing  is  always  true, —  it  is  the 
voice  of  an  inward  harmony  of  character.  It  is  rarely 
found  in  its  jierfection,  but  it  is  nowhere  found  so  exqui- 
sitely as  in  the  stories  and  words  of  Clirist.  In  direct- 
ness, in  temperance,  in  a  certain  sweet  Avisdom  and 
ordered  liumanity,  and  in  the  beaiity  that  results  from 
these,  there  is  nothing  in  the  loveliest  Greek  work  which 
matches  the  parables  of  Christ,  or  such  sayings  as,  "Con- 
sider the  lilies  of  tlie  field,  how  they  grow  :  they  toil  not, 
neither  do  they  spin ;  and  yet  I  say  unto  you.  That  even 
Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like  one  of 
these  ";  or,  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are 
heavy-laden,  and  I  M  ill  give  you  rest."  The  {•harm  of 
them  is  jierfect.  Do  you  not  know  that,  had  Clirist  been 
born  when  Pericles  was  master  at  Atliens,  every  Atlien- 
ian  would  have  clustered  round  him  to  hear  his  words, 
for  the  very  beauty  of  them  ?  Sophocles  and  Socrates 
would  have  felt  their  grace. 

In  tninking  of  him  as  the  Man  of  Sorrows,  in  having 
imposed  on  us  by  the  ascetic  that  he  had  no  form  or 
comeliness,  we  forget  what  must  have  been  his  irresist- 


84 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


ible  charm.  In  the  reaction  which  Christendom  felt  from 
that  heathen  woi'sliip  of  beauty  whicli  ended  in  moral 
deformity,  nay,  linked  beanty  to  sensualism,  the  loveli- 
ness of  Christ  was  too  long  hidden  from  us :  Ave  lost  the 
sense  of  his  grace  in  the  meaning  which  the  nobler 
Greek  Avould  have  given  to  the  term. 

Do  not  you  forget  it.  Seek  the  blessing  of  the  charm 
that  comes  of  sensitiveness  to  the  feelings  of  others,  of 
sensitiveness  to  all  that  is  beautiful,  of  an  inward  har- 
mony of  nature,  and  of  the  exj^ression  of  that  harmony 
in  beautiful  act  and  sijeech.  Say  to  yourselves  in  this 
sense  also,  "  The  grace  of  the  Lord  Jesus  be  with  me 
and  all." 

And,  if  we  are  worthy  of  it  and  see  it,  he  will  give  it 
to  vis.  It  is  given,  indeed,  through  our  seeing  it.  The 
moment  we  see  loveliness,  we  cannot  help  desiring  it ; 
and  the  moment  we  desire  it,  we  begin  our  effort  after 
it.  To  do  this  is  one  of  the  instinctive  passions  of  our 
nature.  We  wish  to  be  like  that  which  we  admire,  and 
we  no  sooner  wish  for  and  admire  it  than  wo  groM'  like 
to  it.  And  the  more  like  we  grow  to  the  beautiful  thing, 
the  more  we  desire  to  be  more  fully  at  one  with  it,  till 
out  of  our  love  of  beauty  arises  an  endless  asj)iration 
and  a  jjressure  toward  jjerfection  which  A\  e  cannot  con- 
ceive otherwise  than  eternal.  It  is  hy  being  beautiful 
that  Christ  gives  us  of  his  beauty,  and  makes  us  into  his 
image.  It  is  in  quite  a  natural,  and  not  a  supernatural 
manner  that  we  are  "changed  into  tlie  same  image  from 
glory  to  glory." 

But  this  is  not  all,  and  it  needs  guarding.  So  far  as 
we  have  touched  this  meaning  of  the  grace  of  Christ,  it 
is  in  the  manner  of  his  ways  and  the  form  of  his  speech 


ft 

THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST.  85 

alone.  It  is  tnie  tlit'se  outward  tilings  sprang  out  of  a 
beautiful  sj^irit ;  but  to  fix  our  eyes  only  upon  tlieiu  is  to 
become  a  worshipper  of  beauty  as  such,  to  have  only  an 
imaginative  love  for  him.  And  I  am  not  sure  that  the 
result  of  that,  ke])t  alone,  would  not  be  evil.  All  wor- 
sliip  of  beauty  for  itself  alone  has  two  main  evils,  and 
the  merely  imaginative  worshij)  of  Christ  is  just  as  likely 
to  lead  to  them  as  the  Avorship  of  the  idea  of  beauty. 
They  are,  first,  absolute  revolt  fi'om  what  is  dull,  ugly, 
harsh,  or  commonplace  ;  and,  secondly,  the  subordma- 
tion  of  morality  to  beauty.  These  Avere  the  practical 
faults  of  the  Greek  "grace,"  and  they  are  the  practical 
faults  of  our  present  love  of  beauty.  Our  festhetic  or 
imaginative  love  turns  away  Avith  pain  from  the  unloA'e- 
liness  of  human  life,  from  harsh  tasks,  from  vulgar  men, 
from  the  things  that  Aveary  us.  And  it  looks  first  at 
beauty,  and  then. at  truth  and  justice  and  ])urity.  That 
is  not  to  have  the  grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ.  It  is 
impossible  to  conceiA-e  anything  more  apart  from  his  life 
than  such  an  isolated  devotion  to  beauty,  such  an  exclu- 
sive and  excluding  "  grace."  The  grace  of  the  Greek 
Avas  ill  Christ,  but  it  Avent  further  than  the  Greek.  Bein$r 
in  union  Avith  tlie  essential  Beauty  of  God,  and  seeing 
God  ill  all  things  and  in  all  men,  it  saw  traces  of  the 
divine  loveliness  everyAvhere,  believed  in  it  and  drcAV  it 
forth.  His  disciples  marvelled  that  he  talked  so  long 
Avith  the  dull  Avoman  of  Samaria;  yet  Christ  saw  fathoms 
deep  in  her  soul  the  pearl  of  spiritual  beauty,  and  he 
drew  it  forth.  It  is  a  picture  c£  all  the  work  of  his 
grace,  in  this  sense,  upon  commonplace  souls.  Nor  did 
liarsh  and  unlovely  tasks  deter  him.  He  sought  out  the 
diseased,  the  miserable,  the  hideous  leper,  those  who 


86  FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 

were  stained  M  itli  ugly  sin.  Tliere  Avas  such  beauty  in. 
redeeming  and  soothing  and  helping  them  that  all  their 
unloveliness  did  not  exist  to  Clirist.  And  he  went  him- 
self through  all  the  j^ain  and  horror  of  a  dreadful  death, 
and  it  became  })erfectly  beautiful  t(j  him,  because  it  was 
done  in  the  glowing  fire  of  love.  That  was  the  way  in 
which  his  grace  and  his  love  of  beauty  wei'e  shown  in 
distinction  from  the  grace  and  the  lo\'e  of  beauty  which 
stand  aside  from  the  unloveliness  of  things  and  men. 

Once  more,  his  grace  and  his  love  of  doing  and  being 
the  Beautiful  were  not  ajjart  from,  or  greater  than,  his 
love  of  and  doing  of  moral  things,  but  coincident  with 
them.  Nothing  which  was  false  or  impure  or  unjust 
was,  in  itself,  beautiful  to  Christ ;  and  the  first  glory  of 
his  grace  and  chai-m  was  its  harmony  with  righteousness. 
"VVe  look  at  it,  then,  not  only  with  tenderness,  such  as  we 
feel  for  loving-kindness,  not  only  with  delight,  such  as 
we  feel  for  beauty,  but  also  with  all  that  earnest  approval 
and  grave  enthusiasm  which  we  give  to  things  and  per- 
sons Avho  are  good.  Christ's  charm  has  its  root  in  love, 
and  is  identical  with  truth  and  justice  and  purity  and 
courage.  It  grasps  the  hand  of  the  Platonist  and  the 
Stoic  alike,  without  the  vagueness  of  the  one  and  the 
rigor  of  the  otlier.  And,  while  it  holds  to  the  Ejiicurean 
so  far  as  the  early  Epicureans  said  that  pleasiire  was  the 
highest  good  because  goodness  was  identical  with  pleas- 
ure, it  turns  aside  from  the  later  Ei)icureans,  and  from 
those  of  our  day  who  put  pleasure  in  beauty  first,  to  the 
loss  or  lessening  of  njoral  goodness.  Guarded  thus  on 
all  sides,  yet  taking  in  all  that  is  noble  in  all  efforts  to 
find  the  highest  good,  it  was  in  truth  grace  in  its  sense 
of  beauty  that  Christ  possessed. 


THE  GRACE  OF  JESUS  CHRIST. 


87 


That  grace,  so  guarded,  so  complete,  l)ray  that  it  may 
be  with  you  all,  in  the  year  that  comes  to-morrow.  It 
will  bless  your  lives,  and  it  will  make  of  you  a  blessing. 
It  will  make  you  at  one  witli  all  that  is  tender,  pitiful, 
dear,  and  sweet  in  human  loving-kindness.  It  will  make 
you  at  one  with  all  that  is  sensitive  and  delicate  and 
graceful  in  manner  and  speech,  and  create  in  you  an 
liarmonious  soul.  Men  will  think  your  life  beautiful,  and 
inspiration  and  effort  will  flow  from  it.  It  will  make 
you  at  one  Avith  moral  good,  just  and  true  and  pure. 
And  it  will  take  all  that  is  loving  in  humanity,  and  all 
that  is  fair,  and  all  that  is  moral,  and  link  them  to  and 
complete  them  by  uniting  them  to  the  love  of  God,  and 
to  God's  love  for  all  men ;  so  that  to  human  love  and 
moral  love  and  imaginative  loxe  will  be  added  the  si3irit- 
ual  love  which  gathers  them  all  into  perfection. 

Therefore,  having  this  inspiration  and  aspii-ation,  hav- 
ing the  power  of  becoming  blessed  in  sharing  of  this 
grace  of  Christ's,  we  will  \mt  aside  the  sorrow  with 
which  we  look  back  on  the  year,  and  take  np  a  manlier 
and  more  resolute  strain.  "Whatever  may  have  been  our 
l^ain,  our  loss,  our  failure,  our  sin,  we  are  not  yet  dead, 
.nor  yet  lost.  And  there  is  much  to  redeem  and  much  to 
win.  We  may  yet  be  blessed,  even  in  a  Aveary  life  of 
struggle,  if  we  have  courage  and  faith  and  good-will,  by 
union  with  the  grace  that  belonged  to  Christ.  And,  when 
■\ve  are  so  blessed,  Ave  may  by  that  grace  bless  others, 
even  though  we  can  not  take  much  of  the  blessedness  to 
ourselves.  We  can  not  be  happy,  but  Ave  may  be  good. 
We  may  not  have  peace,  but  Ave  may  Avin  the  beauty  of 
moral  conquest.  We  may  go  softly  all  our  years,  in 
remembrance  of  failure  and  wrong;  but  we  may  at  last 


88 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


feel  that  God  has  forgiven  iis,  and  that  ho  is  making  us 
like  himself  through  Jesus  Christ  and  through  love  of 
his  grace.  And,  having  these  hopes,  we  may,  on  this 
last  day  of  tlie  year,  when  we  stand  on  the  verge  of  the 
past  and  future,  say  with  humility  and  love  to  each  other, 
—  for  it  is  beautiful  to  end  the  year  with  blessing, —  The 
grace  of  our  Lord  Jesus  be  with  you.  Amen. 


THE 

INTELLECTUAL  DEYELOPMEOT 
OF  CHEIST. 

1867. 

"  Jesns  increased  in  wisdom." — Luke  ii.,  52. 

The  subject  on  which  we  are  employed  is  the  devel- 
opment of  Christ.  I  spoke  last  Sunday  of  Christ's  de- 
velopment in  childhood,  throuirli  the  influence  of  out- 
ward nature.  Our  subject  to-day  is  the  intellectual 
development  of  Christ. 

The  first  hint  which  we  receive  of  this  intellectual 
development  is  the  story  of  his  journey  to  Jerusalem. 
We  find  him  in  the  Temple,  listening,  and  asking  ques- 
tions of  the  doctors;  or,  in  other  words,  exhibiting  him- 
self as  possessed  of  the  two  first  necessities  for  intel- 
lectual development, —  engrossed  attention  and  eager 
curiosity. 

Now,  what  were  the  steps  by  which,  we  may  con- 
jecture, the  Divine  Child  had  arrived  at  this  kindling 
of  the  intellect,  and  how  did  these  several  steps  affect 
his  character? 

Last  Sunday,  we  endeavored  to  represent  him  as 
stirred  by  the  outward  scenery  of  nature  to  recognize 
what  was  within  himself,  and  as  recognizing  in  nature 
not  the  dead  and  lifeless  world,  as  we  conceive  it,  but 


90 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


a  living  world,  beneath  whose  outward  forms  lay  spir- 
itual realities. 

Now,  communion  with  nature  intensifies  the  desire  of 
communion  with  man.  And  it  seems  to  me  impossible 
to  deny  that  he  who  afterward,  even  in  his  most  solemn 
liours,  on  tlie  Mount  of  Transfiguration  and  in  the  Gar- 
den of  Gethsemane,  sought  and  surrounded  himself  witli 
the  sympathy  of  his  three  favorite  disciples,  did  not  also, 
as  a  child,  seek  for  human  sympathy  to  share  with  him 
his  childhood's  delight  in  the  beauty  and  solemnity  of 
nature.  Hence  there  was  strengthened  in  him  love  of 
man,  arising  from  love  of  nature.  There  was  quickened 
in  him  desire  of  social  communion,  desire  of  seeing  his 
own  thought  reflected  by  other  minds,  desire  of  know- 
ing what  other  beings  than  liimself  both  knew  and 
thought  and  did  in  the  world. 

There  was  not  much  to  gratify  these  desires  in  Naza- 
reth. We  know  the  character  of  the  place;  and  the 
Holy  Child  must  even  then  have  felt  the  first  keen  stings 
of  that  suffering  for  the  sin  of  the  world  which  made 
him,  as  man,  die  to  redeem  the  world.  Moreover,  a  re- 
mote and  Jietty  village  could  sujiply  but  little  food  to 
his  awakened  and  craving  intellect.  He  had  soon  assimi- 
lated all  he  c(rald  find  there  of  the  elements  necessary 
to  develop  his  mental  powers.  I  can  conceive  him 
eagerly  looking  forward  to  the  day  when  he  should 
accompany  his  parents  to  Jerusalem, —  not  unduly  ex- 
cited, not  impatient,  but  nobly  curious  to  see  human  life 
concentrated  in  one  of  its  great  centres,  to  watch  the 
movement  and  the  variety  of  the  croAvd  of  many  nations 
who  poured  into  Jerusalem  at  the  Feast  of  the  Passover. 

At  last,  the  hour  came,  and  with  the  "  quiet  indej^en- 


INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CHRIST.  91 

deiK'c  of  heart  "  which  lie  had  secured  through  still  com- 
munion with  nature,  with  the  deep  desire  of  knowing 
men,  and  w  hh  a  deep  sense  of  childlike  repose  on  God, 
the  Boy,  Christ  Jesus,  set  forth  with  his  company  from 
Nazareth.  No  doubt,  according  to  pious  Jewish  prac- 
tice, he  had  been  instructed  in  the  history  of  his  i)eople ; 
and  now  what  thoughts  were  his,  as  for  the  first  time 
he  saw  the  interior  of  Palestine,  the  Jordan  rolling  deep 
between  its  banks,  the  savage  landscape  of  tlie  eastern 
desert !  There  was  not  a  spot  along  the  route  which 
was  not  dignified  by  some  association  or  hallowed  by 
some  great  name. 

Wiiatever  we  in  youth  have  felt  —  for  life  wears  out 
the  keenness  of  recejitiveness  —  when  Ave  have  stood 
upon  some  spot  made  glorious  in  our  country's  history, 
whatever  thrill  of  high  emotion  or  rush  of  noble  impulse 
has  then  come  upon  us,  and  swept  us  out  of  our  narrow 
sjihere  of  childish  interests  into  the  wide  region  of  inter- 
ests which  cluster  round  the  words,  "  our  country  and  its 
hei'oes,"  came  then,  we  may  be  sure,  upon  the  Child.  A 
larger  horizon  of  thought  opened  before  him.  The  heroic 
past  of  Israel  became  a  reality.  The  sight  of  places 
where  noble  deeds  were  done  made  the  deeds  themselves 
real.  And  not  only  the  deeds,  but  also  the  me7i ;  for,  in 
the  years  gone  by,  Hebrew  men  had  here  done  and  suf- 
fered greatly.  Here  was  their  theatre:  this  was  Jordan  ; 
there  Avas  Jericho;  there  David  had  passed  l>y;  there 
Jacob  had  set  up  his  rugged  pilloAV.  At  once,  localized, 
imi)ersonated  by  the  landscape,  the  men  of  Israel  became 
real  living  ])ersonages,  the  past  Avas  croAvded  Avith  moA'ing 
forms,  and  History  Avas  born  in  the  intellect  of  Christ. 
The  impression  must  have  deepened  in  him  as  he  entei'ed 


92 


FAITH  AIvD  FKEEDOM. 


Jerusalem.  He  must  liave  felt  in  heart  and  soul  the 
shook  of  the  great  town's  first  presence.  He  could  not 
walk  unmoved  among  the  streets,  so  vocal  with  the  fame 
of  Solomon,  the  patriotic  enthusiasm  of  Isaiah,  the  sor- 
row and  the  passion  of  Jeremiah.  The  stones  of  the 
walls  spoke  to  him,  the  gates  replied  ;  and,  when  first  he 
saw  the  mighty  mass  of  the  great  Temple  flashing  white 
in  the  sunlight  upon  its  uplifted  rock,  what  a  thrill !  —  a 
thrill  of  that  fine  excitement,  half  of  sense  and  half  of 
soul,  which  is  almost  a  jjhysical  pain,  and  out  of  which 
springs  more  creative  thought  than  comes  afterward  to  a 
man  in  a  year  of  that  "  set  gray  life  "  of  work  which  we 
know  so  well  in  London.  These  are  the  impressions 
which  kindle  latent  intellect,  which  abide  with  us  as 
living  things  within  the  brain,  engendering  the  life  of 
thought ;  and  if  we,  cold  northern  natures,  have  felt 
these  things  in  our  childhood,  and  at  a  younger  age  than 
Christ  was  now,  how  must  an  Oriental  child  of  genius 
(to  assume  for  a  moment  a  ground  which  the  destruc- 
tive critics  will  not  deny)  have  felt  their  power  on  his 
intellect  ? 

Look  at  another  point. 

As  he  drew  near  to  Jerusalem  in  this  journey,  various 
troops  of  pilgrims  must  have  joined  their  comjjany.  He 
saw  for  the  first  time  the  great  diversity  of  the  human 
race.  Accustomed  to  one  type  alone  at  Nazareth,  and 
that  a  limited  type,  for  Nazareth  was  an  outlying  village, 
—  and  a  somewhat  degraded  type,  for  Nazareth  had  a 
bad  reputation, —  he  was  now  brought  into  contact  with 
many  types  of  men. 

The  same  kind  of  result,  we  may  conjecture,  was  pro- 
duced upon  his  intellect  as  is  produced  when  a  boy  is 


INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CHRIST.  93 


first  sent  out  of  the  narrow  circle  of  home  into  the 
varied  human  hfe  of  a  pnbHc  school.  The  impression 
which  is  tlion  made  upon  tlie  intellect  of  a  boy  is  one  of 
the  most  jirodiictive  which  he  receives  in  life.  The  im- 
pression made  uj^on  the  mind  of  Christ  must  have  been 
of  equal  depth  at  least,  prol)ably  far  greater ;  for,  first, 
we  know  from  his  after  life  tliat  his  intellect  was  of  the 
mightiest  cliaracter,  and,  secondly,  the  variety  Avhicli  met 
him  was  greater  than  that  with  which  an  English  boy  is 
brouglit  into  contact.  Thus,  it  was  not  only  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  past  through  the  power  of  association  which 
stirred  his  intellect :  it  was  also  stirred  by  the  contact 
with  the  varied  national  and  individual  life  of  the 
2)resent. 

And  then  there  was  that  wonderful  Jerusalem  in 
front  where  all  this  variety  of  life  was  now  concentrated. 
"What  wonder. if  the  pure,  high-hearted  Child,  with  eager 
thoughts  beginnmg  to  move,  looked  forward  with  intel- 
lectnal  enthusiasm  to  his  arrival  among  the  throng  of 
men  ? 

More  and  more,  it  is  plain,  the  A^ast  idea  of  Humanity 
must  have  unfolded  itself  within  him  during  the  journey. 
Then  came,  to  complete  and  fix  this  idea,  the  rush  and 
confusion  of  the  great  midtitude  in  Jerusalem  during  the 
Feast, —  men  of  every  nation  under  heaven  in  the  streets; 
strange  dresses,  strange  faces.  There  was  the  Roman 
soldier,  grave,  and  bearing  in  his  face  the  stamp  of  law 
and  sacrifice  ;  there  was  tlie  acute  Greek  countenance, 
the  heavy  Egyptian  features,  the  voluptuous  lip  and 
subtle  glance  of  the  Persian,  the  wild  Arab  eyes.  Every 
face  was  a  mystery,  and  the  greatest  mystery  of  all  was 
the  wonderful  world  of  men. 


94 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOZM. 


What  kindles  thouglit  like  th'is, —  the  first  riisli  uj>ou 
the  brain  of  the  idea  of  the  diversity  of  humanity? 

It  is  an  idea  naturally  concei\  ed  by  a  boy.  We  do 
not  imjiute  to  Christ,  at  this  time,  the  thoughts  Avliic-li 
arise  from  it,  too  numerous  to  mention.  But  we  find  it 
liere  in  its  origin;  and  in  the  silent  time  to  come  in  Xaza- 
reth  it  worked  in  his  intellect,  producing  its  fruit  of 
thought  from  year  to  year.  Do  we  trace  it  in  his  min- 
istry? "Other  sheep  I  have  which  are  not  of  tliis  fold  : 
them  also  1  must  bring."  "JMany  shall  come  from  tlie 
East  and  West."  "Go  ye  into  all  tlie  world,  and  preacli 
the  gospel  to  e\'ery  creature." 

There  is  another  intellect-awakening  thought  correl- 
ative to  this  of  the  diversity  of  humanity,  which  I  can- 
not but  think  was  first  stirred  now  in  the  mind  of  Christ, 
—  the  thought  of  the  vidttj  of  the  race. 

There  was  one  spirit  predominant  in  all  the  jjilgvims  to 
the  Feast.  They  came  up  to  Jerusalem,  diverse  as  they 
were,  inspired  by  one  thought,  to  j'crform  one  common 
worship,  in  one  j^lace,  to  one  God.  It  was  the  form  in 
which  the  national  unity  of  tlie  Jewish  people  had  been 
of  old  embodied.  But  now  hundreds  of  other  nations 
had  received  tlie  Jewish  religion  as  proselytes.  Christ, 
therefore,  saw  not  only  the  Jews,  ljut  Gentiles,  miited  by 
the  worsliip  of  a  universal  God.  We  do  not  S'.iy  that  he 
clearly  conceived  the  thought  of  the  oneness  of  human- 
ity at  the  age  of  twelve, —  it  was  probably  too  large  for 
his  normal  development, — but  we  do  say  that  there  is 
nothing  unnatural  in  believing  that  the  germ  of  it  was 
then  first  quickened  into  life.  Now  there  are  few 
thoughts  which  more  than  this  promote  intellectual  de- 
velopment.   We  may  imagine  it  slowly  growing  into 


INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CHRIST.  95 


fulness  (luring  tlic  maturing  years  at  Xazaretli,  till  at  last 
it  altered  its  form  and  became  personal.  This  imity  of 
humanity,  so  broken,  so  imjierfect, —  this  great  idea, — 
■where  is  it  realized  perfectly?  And  out  of  the  dejiths 
of  Christ's  divine  and  human  consciousness  came  the 
answer.  It  is  realized  in  me.  All  that  is  human  meets 
in  me.  I n\n  the  centre  Avhere  all  the  di\  erse  and  con- 
verging lines  of  humanity  meet.    Zam  the  race. 

Once  more,  in  tracing  the  intellectual  development  of 
Chi'ist  in  connection  with  this  one  glimpse  of  his  history, 
we  come  to  the  scene  in  the  Temple.  Led  there  by  his 
desire  to  know,  he  was  brought  for  the  first  time  into 
contact  with  cultivated  intellects.  He  heard  for  the  first 
time  the  acute  reasoning  of  the  schools :  he  realized  for 
the  first  time  the  vastness  of  the  sea  of  knowledge.  The 
thought  of  the  diversity  of  the  human  intellect  was  ex- 
hibited to  him  in  the  diversity  of  the  opinions  which  he 
heard.  He  was  made  acquainted  with  the  parties  among 
the  Jews :  with  the  petrified  theology  of  the  scribes, 
Avith  the  conventional  morality  of  tlie  Pharisee,  with  the 
conservative  infidelity  of  the  Sadducee,  with  all  the  false 
show  of  religion  and  the  death  which  lay  beneath.  There 
he  saw 

"  Decency  and  Custom  starving  Truth, 
And  blind  Authority  beating  witli  his  staff 
The  Child  that  might  have  led  him." 

Probably,  these  were,  at  first,  only  impressions ;  but  we 
cannot  doubt  that  tlicy  produced  their  fruit  at  Nazareth. 
For,  starting  ivom  these  experiences,  there  grew  nj) 
within  him  that  clear  comprehension  of  Jewish  life  and 
all  its  opinions  and  parties,  and  of  the  way  in  which  he 


96 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


■was  destined  to  work  upon  them,  wliich  comes  out  so 
wonderfully  in  his  ministry.  He  did  not  hear  in  vain  the 
doctors  disputing,  he  did  not  ask  them  questions  without 
a  great  intellectual  result. 

Such  must  have  been  the  iniluence  on  the  intellect  of 
Christ  of  his  days  in  the  Tem])lc.  It  should  l)e  delight- 
ful to  us  to  think  of  him,  whom  m'c  reverence  as  Master 
and  Lord,  sharing  thus  in  our  curious  childhood,  listen- 
ing with  engrossed  attention,  "both  hearing  them  "  — 
questioning  with  eager  desire  —  "and  a'sking  them  ques- 
tions." It  should  he  a  Avonderful  thought  for  us  to  im- 
agine, with  love  and  awe  coinbined,  how  idea  after  idea, 
existing  there  potentially,  unfolded  their  germs  under 
this  influence  in  the  mind  of  Christ, — germs  which,  ma- 
turing, and  as  they  matured  generating  otliers,  grew  up 
during  the  yeai-s  of  silence  at  Nazareth,  into  that  per- 
fect flower  of  intellect  which,  shedding  its  living  seeds 
over  eighteen  centuries,  has  given  birth  to  tlio  great  ideas 
which  once  created,  and  still  create,  the  greater  part  of 
the  intellectual  life  of  the  world. 

We  may  conjecture  that  the  first  impressions  in  Je- 
rusalem awoke  in  Christ's  spirit  the  elevated  view  of 
human  nature  which  we  conceive  from  his  after  life  to 
have  been  latent  in  him  as  a  child.  But  when  he  came 
to  consider  classes  and  individuals,  and  not  the  race  as  a 
whole, —  in  its  idea, —  he  found  hypocrisy,  selfishness, 
tyranny,  meanness.  But  tlie  first  idea  must  have  re- 
mained firm,  coexistent  Avitli  the  other  sad  ideas  which 
followed  it. 

Man,  then,  was  great,  and  man  was  base ;  man  was 
mighty,  and  man  was  weak ;  man  had  a  divine  nature, 
and  man  had  given  himself  over  to  a  base  nature.  But 


INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CHEIST. 


97 


the  greatness,  strength,  and  Jlvineness  "were  his  true 
nature :  the  others  Avere  the  result  of  an  alien  and  usurp- 
ing power.  Both  existed;  but  the  one  existed  to  be 
made  perfect,  the  other  to  be  destroyed.  Hence,  not  all 
the  evil  Clirist  came  into  contact  ■with,  not  all  the  blind- 
ness, sin,  and  cruelty  which  he  saw  and  suffered  from, 
could  ever  overthrow  his  divine  trust  in  that  which  man 
might  become.  Here  was  a  real  spiritual  thought  bear- 
ing on  his  mission, —  man  is  ccipaUe  of  being  redeemed. 

As  his  spirit  grew  more  conscious  of  what  it  really 
was,  he  felt  that  truth  —  man's  capability  of  being  re- 
deemed—  not  only  witliout,  but  Avitliin  himself.  How 
could  he  despair  of  human  nature,  when  he  kncM'  that  he 
himself  Avas  sinless  human  nature?  His  A'ery  existence 
as  man  was  j^roof  that  man  was  destined  to  be  perfect. 
Conscious  thus,  from  his  own  sinlessness,  of  man's  pos- 
sibility of  sinlessness,  he  became  conscious,  for  the  same 
reason,  of  another  truth:  that  he  was  the  destined  Re- 
deemer of  the  race  from  the  usurj^ing  power  of  sin. 
Being  pure,  he  knew  he  could  save  the  impure ;  being 
perfect  Life,  he  knew  he  could  conquer  the  death  of 
man ;  being  2)erfect  Love,  he  knew  he  could  cast  out  of 
the  race  the  devil  of  self-seeking.  Immediately,  intui- 
tively, he  felt  thus:  was  conscious  of  himself,  first,  as 
sinless  humanity;  secondly,  as  the  Redeemer  of  human- 
ity from  sin. 

We  seem,  in  this  way,  to  see  faintly  a  strange  co- 
existence of  apjtarently  conti-adictory  ideas  witliin  the 
sjiirit  of  Christ  during  liis  life  at  Xazareth.  One  Avould 
alniDst  think  tliat  that  impression  of  the  greatness  of  the 
human  soul  would  have  been  worn  out  by  daily  contact 
with  the  wild  dwellers  at  Nazareth ;  and  yet  with  what 


98 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


sort  of  a  spirit  did  he  come  forth  into  the  ■\vorhl  ?  With 
unshaken  trust  m  human  nature,  recognizing  its  evil,  but 
believing,  as  none  have  ever  believed  before  or  since,  in 
its  nobility,  its  capabilities,  its  infinite  power  of  work. 
It  M  as  not  only  interest  in  hximanity,  it  was  lo\e  of 
humanity,  love,  the  "  business  of  his  Father." 

We  come  to  that  by  slow  degrees ;  rise  into  that  life 
by  finding  out  the  wretchedness  and  death  of  self,  but 
in  the  Saviour's  s^nrit  it  rose  into  being  like  a  flower 
from  a  seed  already  there.  It  developed  itself  till  it 
penetrated  his  Avhole  nature  with  one  great  sj)iritual 
thought,  "  I  will  give  away  all  my  being  for  the  human 
race." 

This  love  of  man,  and  desire  to  impai't  life  to  those 
who  needed  life,  was  correlative  to  another  spiritual  idea, 
— indignation  at  t'xll.  It  was  this  which  balanced  love 
in  Christ,  and  kept  it  from  the  weakness  of  our  affection 
and  the  maudlin  sentiment  of  much  of  our  philanthrojiy. 
Christ  abhorred  sin,  and  saw  it  in  its  native  darkness. 
There  was  in  him,  therefore,  an  agony  of  desire  to  re- 
deem us  from  it,  and  a  j'itying  indignation  for  our  des- 
olate slavery.  He  labored  to  conA'ince  men  that  they 
did  need  a  deliverer  from  sin ;  and  Avhen  a  man,  like 
Zacchajus,  fi'lt  his  selfishness  and  desired  freedom,  it  is 
wonderful  how  the  Saviour's  spirit  sprung  to  meet  the 
seeking  sjiirit,  clung  to  it,  and  2)oured  into  it  a  stream  of 
life  and  faith  and  hope.  But  when  men,  for  the  sake 
of  keeping  up  an  ecclesiastical  dominion,  for  tlie  sake  of 
success,  for  the  honor  of  dead  maxims,  stopjied  the  way 
of  others,  gave  men  lifeless  forms,  and  persecuted  the 
Light  because  it  condemned  their  darkness,  how  the 
holy  anger  kindled !    As  the  Child  listened  to  the  intol- 


INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CHRIST.  99 


erancc  of  tlie  Pliariscc',  the  dogmatism  of  tlie  scribe,  and 
tlie  srt)iTiful  iiiiiilelity  of  tlie  Sadducee,  tliere  must  have 
s})ruiig  up  in  liLs  heart  an  instinctive  feeling  of  ojjposi- 
tion  ;  and  this  spiritual  wratli  at  M'rong  done  to  the  souls 
of  men  grew  and  deepened  at  Xazaretli, —  as  the  mean- 
ing of  •what  he  had  heard  in  the  Temjjle  Avas  made  clear 
to  him  by  his  after  knowledge, —  till  it  cuhninated  in  the 
withering  denTuiciations  of  his  ministry. 

Clirist  returned  to  Nazaretli  from  Jerusalem,  the  same, 
and  yet  how  changed,  how  largely  widened  and  deepened 
must  have  been  his  human  nature !  The  thought  of 
humanity  had  now  taken  a  higher  place  in  his  mind  than 
the  thought  of  nature.  The  thouglit  of  God  as  the 
Father  of  man  had  now  succeeded  to  the  thought  of  God 
as  the  Life  of  nature.  His  own  relation  to  the  race  grew 
into  distinctness.  The  deeper  "  knowledge  of  tlie  world  " 
which  he  had  gained  made,  as  if  by  a  subtler  sense,  all 
the  common  human  life  of  Nazareth  an  image  of  the 
Life  of  the  great  world.  He  saw  —  being  himself  the 
]Man  —  in  every  one  he  met  the  great  common  principles 
of  humanit}-,  wliile  he  recei^•ed  the  impress  of  tlieir  dis- 
tinctive characteristics.  "Among  least  things,  he  had  the 
sense  of  greatest."  There  Avas  not  a  word  or  action  of 
other  men  which  did  not,  as  he  grew  in  wisdom,  touch  a 
thousand  other  things,  and  fall  into  relationship  with 
tliem  under  the  uni\  ersal  princii)les  which,  being  the 
daily  companions  of  his  intellect,  linked  together  in  his 
mind  the  present  in  which  he  lived  to  the  past  and  fut- 
vire  of  the  race.  A  new  interest  had  arisen  within  him, 
the  interest  in  humanity,  or  ratlier,  I  sliould  say,  a  new 
love.  It  clung  to  him,  it  pervaded  his  whole  thought. 
That  scene  in  Jerusalem  stamjied  itself  on  his  memory 
forever. 


100 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


With  tliis  luiman  centre  of  thought,  he  lived  on  in 
peaceful  solitude  in  the  stillness  of  the  upland  town. 
Often,  he  must  have  Avandered  to  the  summit  of  the  hill, 
when  wearied  by  the  i^etty  life  of  the  Aillage,  and,  as  in 
after  life,  so  now,  communed  in  that  prayer  which  is  not 
petition,  hut  union  deeply  felt,  ^\  ith  God  his  Father,  and 
seen  his  life  unrolling  itself  before  him — not  devised  and 
planned,  but  intuitively  recognized  —  as  a  panorama  of 
Avhich  death  for  truth  and  for  love  of  men  was  the  sad 
and  glorious  close.  But  he  was  not  deprived  of  tenderer 
and  more  delightful  thought.  How  often  must  the 
thouglits  of  his  cliildliood, —  of  wiiich  we  spoke  last  Sun- 
day,— -the  thouglits  developed  in  him  by  the  beauty  of 
his  Father's  Avorld  of  Life  and  Light  in  nature,  have 
come  to  satisfy  and  cheer  his  inward  life  of  thought ! 
How  often,  as  the  turmoil  of  tlie  world  pressed  upon  his 
brain,  must  the  stai-s  and  mountains  and  the  peace  of 
evening  have  given  to  him  tlieir  silent  ministrations! 
How  often,  as  the  shadflAV  of  his  sorrow  fell  upon  his 
heart,  must  the  quiet  joy  of  his  Father's  order,  felt  in 
nature,  have  restored  and  soothed  his  intellect ! 

For  it  were  exquisite  pleasure  to  him  to  pass  (with 
full  knowledge  now  of  the  true  relation  of  man  and  nat- 
ure) from  the  contemplation  of  the  w^eakness  and  the 
want  of  life  of  the  human  world  into  communion  with  that 
living  spiritual  world  of  God's  activity  and  peace  which 
he  saw  witliin  the  phenomena  of  nature.  This  was  the 
one  deejj  solitary  pleasure  of  his  life.  For  though,  as  we 
have  said,  the  thought  of  humanity,  and  not  the  thought 
of  nature,  was  now  the  jire-eminent  thought  in  his  mind, 
—  because  the  redemption  of  man  was  his  work, —  yet 
the  more  divine  thouglit  must  always  have  been  the 


INTELLECTUAL  DEVELOPMENT  OF  CHRIST.  101 


thought  of  nature.  His  labor  was  inspired  by  the  former: 
his  recreation,  joy,  and  consolation  were  supj^lied  by  the 
latter. 

Brethren,  let  us  part  with  tlie  solemnizing  imagination 
of  this, —  Christ's  silent  growth  in  wisdom  in  the  stillness 
of  the  retired  Galilean  village.  May  it  calm  our  noisy 
lives  and  our  obtrusive  interests  to  realize,  if  but  for  one 
dignified  moment,  the  image  of  the  Saviour  of  the  world, 
in  whom  was  now  concealed  from  men  the  regeneration 
and  redemption  of  the  race, —  living  a  forgotten  life,  but 
ever  "  voyaging  through  strange  seas  of  thought,  alone." 


THE  FITISTESS  OF  CHRISTIAmTT 
FOR  MANKmD.-I. 

1871. 

"  Another  parable  put  he  forth  unto  them,  saying,  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  like  to  a  grain  of  mustard-seed,  which  a  man  took  and 
sowed  in  his  field :  which  indeed  is  tlie  least  of  all  seeds ;  but  when 
it  is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  herlis,  and  becomcth  a  tree,  so 
that  tlie  birds  of  tlie  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof." — 
Matt,  xiii.,  31,  32. 

"VYb  are  told,  in  one  of  the  Arabian  stories  which 
charmed  our  childhood,  of  a  fairy  tent  which  a  young 
jarince  brought,  hidden  in  a  walnut-shell,  to  his  father. 
Placed  in  the  council-chamber,  it  grew  till  it  encanopied 
the  king  and  his  ministers.  Taken  into  the  court-yard, 
it  filled  tlie  space  till  all  the  household  stood  beneath  its 
shade.  Brought  into  the  midst  of  the  great  plain  with- 
out the  city,  where  all  the  army  was  encamjDed,  it  spread 
its  mighty  awning  all  abroad,  till  it  gave  sliolter,to  a 
host.    It  had  infinite  flexibility,  infinite  e.\;i)ansiveness. 

We  are  told  in  our  sacred  books  of  a  religion  given  to 
man,  Av^hich,  at  its  first  setting  forward,  was  less  tlian  the 
least  of  all  seeds.  It  was  the  true  fairy  tent  for  the 
spirits  of  men.  It  grew  till  it  embraced  a  few  Jews  of 
every  class;  and  men  thought,  "  Now,  it  will  do  no  more: 
it  can  never  suit  the  practical  sense  of  the  lloman,  nor 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND.  103 


sholtt'i-  Le'iicath  its  sway  the  subtile  intellect  of  the  Greek. 
To  do  one  is  improbable,  to  do  both  is  inij)ossil>le." 
Curious  to  say,  it  did  both.  It  made  the  Roman  more 
practical :  it  made  the  Greek  intellect  alive  again. 
When  Rome  fell,  and  during  her  long  decay,  some  may 
have  said  :  "Tliis  boasted  religion  may  suit  civilization, 
but  it  can  never  adapt  itself  to  barbarism."  But  it  ex- 
panded in  new  directions  to  embrace  the  transal}>ine 
nations,  and  took  new  forms  to  suit  them  with  an  un- 
equalled flexibility.  Soon  it  covered  Europe  with  its 
shadow;  and,  in  a  continent  where  types  of  race  are 
oddly  and  vitally  varied,  it  found  accepitance  with  all. 
It  has  gone  abroad  since  then,  and  reached  out  its  arms 
to  the  Oriental,  the  African,  the  American  tribes,  and 
the  islands  of  the  seas.  And,  however  small  may  have 
been  its  success  at  present,  there  is  one  thing  in  which 
it  differs  from  every  other  religion :  it  has  been  found 
cajjable  of  being  assimilated  by  all,  from  the  Avild  negro 
of  thcwest  coast  to  the  educated  gentleman  of  India. 
I  s])eak  of  the  teaclilng  of  Clirist,  not  of  unyielding 
Christian  systems;  and  iiothing  is  more  remarkable  in 
that  teaching  than  the  way  in  which  it  throws  off,  like  a 
serjient,  one  after  another,  the  sloughs  of  system,  and 
spreads  undivided  in  the  world,  and  operates  unsi)ent,  by 
its  own  divine  vitality. 

Xow,  it  is  this  extraordinary  power  of  easy  ex^^ansion, 
this  power  of  adapting  itself  to  the  most  diverse  forms 
of  thought,  which  is  one  strong  proof  of  the  eternal  fit- 
ness of  Christianity  for  mankind.    This  is  our  subject. 

It  has  these  powers,  first,  because  of  its  want  of  sys- 
tem. 

Christ  gave  ideas,  but  not  their  forms.    We  have  one 


104 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


connected  discourse  of  liis,  niid  there  is  not  a  vcstifje  of 
systematic  theology  in  it.  Nay  more,  many  of  tlie  state- 
ments are  so  incaiiable  of  being  grasped  by  the  intellect 
acting  alone,  and  so  ambiguous  and  paradoxical  to  the 
pure  reason,  that  they  seem  to  have  been  sj^okcn  for  the 
despair  of  systematizers. 

What  is  one  to  do  with  a  sentence  like  this,  "  Blessed 
are  the  pure  in  heart,  for  tliey  sliall  see  God"?  We 
cannot  make  a  dogma  out  of  it ;  we  cannot  get  it  into  a 
system  ;  it  breaks  down  under  logical  analysis.  "  ^Yhat 
is  it  to  be  pure  in  heart?"  asks  some  defining  person. 
"  Does  it  refer  to  general  cleanliness  from  all  sin,  or  free- 
dom from  the  sjiecial  sin  of  unchaste  tliought  ?  TVTiat 
is  it  to  see  God  ?  Above  all,  what  is  God?  That  ques- 
tion is  insoluble,  unknowable." 

We  cannot  call  a  teaching  systematic  which  in  this 
way  leaves  aside  the  understanding,  unless  first  instructed 
by  feeling,  which  appeals  first  of  all  to  certain  spiritiial 
jjowers  in  man  which  it  declares  to  be  tlie  most  human 
powers  he  ]iossesses.  Such  phrases  have  no  intellectual 
outlines.  Purity  of  heart  has  nothing  to  do  with  the 
resion  of  the  iinderstandinu; :  God  is  not  an  intellectual 
conception.  But,  if  man  has  distinctly  sjtiritual  emo- 
tions and  desires,  Avords  like  these  thrill  hun  like  music. 

Indeed,  there  is  a  fine  analogy  to  Christ's  words  in 
music.  It  is  the  least  definable  of  all  the  arts  :  it  appeals 
to  emotion,  not  to  reason.  Neither  you  nor  I  can  say 
of  that  air  of  Mozart's  that  it  means  this  or  that.  It 
means  one  thing  to  me,  another  thing  to  you.  It  leaves, 
however,  an  indefinite  but  similar  impression  uj^on  us 
both, —  a  sense  of  exquisite  melody  Avhich  soothes  life,  a 
love  of  a  life  in  harmony  Avith  the  impression  made,  and 


riTNESS  OF  CHKISTIANITY  FOli  MANKIND.  105 


an  affection  for  the  man  •\vlio  gave  us  so  delicate  an  emo- 
tion. So  is  it  with  the  words  of  Clirist.  Tlie  \mder- 
standing  cannot  define  them :  the  sjiirit  receives  them, 
and  each  man  receives  them  in  accordance  with  the  state 
of  his  spirit.  To  one,  these  Avords,  "Blessed  are  the 
pure  in  lieart,  for  tliey  sliall  see  God,"  are  solemn  with 
warning,  to  another  they  are  soothing  with  comfort ;  to 
one  they  mean  battle,  to  another  peace  ;  to  one  they 
sound  like  music  on  the  waters,  to  another  like  the  trump 
of  doom. 

Could  you  define  the  meaning  of  Mozart's  air,  so  that 
it  should  be  the  same  to  all,  how  much  had  been  lost ! 
Could  you  do  the  same  by  Christ's  words,  what  a  mis- 
fortune !  To  limit  them  to  one  meaning  would  be  to 
destroy  their  life. 

Again,  take  the  paradoxical  sayings.  "  If  a  man  smite 
thee  on  the  one  cheek,  tui-n  to  him  the  other."  Submit 
that  to  the  criticism  of  tlie  understanding,  without  per- 
mitting spiritual  feeling  to  play  upon  it,  and  it  becomes 
absurd.  Define  it  accurately,  and  there  is  either  too 
much  or  too  little  left  of  it.  Tell  the  man  who  has  a 
tendency  to  fear  that  he  is  to  take  it  literally,  and  he 
becomes  a  coward  on  princii)le  ;  tell  the  same  to  another 
who  has  military  traditions  of  honor,  and  he  says  that 
Christ's  teaching  is  not  fit  for  practical  life.  But  do  not 
attempt  to  define  it :  let  the  spirit  of  each  man  explain 
it  to  himself,  and  the  truth  which  is  in  it  will  work  its 
way. 

There  is  no  doubt,  I  think,  tliat  Christ  would  have 
refused  to  explain  it.  All  he  would  have  said,  he  did 
say  :  "  He  that  hath  ears  to  hear,  let  him  hoar." 

It  seems  as  if  Christ  distinctly  chose  indefiniteness  in 


106 


FAITH  AXD  FREEDOM. 


certain  parts  of  liis  teaching,  in  order  to  shut  out  the 
jjossibility  of  any  rigid  system  of  Christian  thought. 

Of  conrse  there  are  })ositive  and  definite  portions  of 
his  teaching.  "  Do  unto  others  as  ye  "would  they  should 
do  luito  you."  "Be  ye  perfect,  even  as  your  Father  in 
heaven  is  i)erfect."  "  Thou  shalt  love  the  Lord  thy  God." 
"Love  one  another,  even  as  I  have  loved  you."  These 
were  definite  statements,  which  aj^pealed  to  the  sjiirit  of 
man ;  but  even  in  their  case  Clirist  never  wove  them  into 
a  fixed  system  of  theology,  nor  hardened  them  into  an 
unchanging  mode  of  practice. 

IIow  Avas  he  to  systematize  aspiration  to  perfection, 
or  define  the  love  of  man  to  man,  or  exjjlain  in  limited 
words  the  passionate  desire  to  be  redeemed  from  the 
moral  degradation  of  sin  ?  ^"as  he  to  reply  to  men  Avho 
asked  him  to  say  what  he  meant  by  "our"  in  "  Our 
Father"? 

Xo  :  the  statements  were  positive,  but  they  had  to  do 
with  things  not  knowable  by  tlie  understanding,  not  de- 
finable by  the  intellect.  Therefore,  Christ's  religion  can 
never  be  made  into  a  system.  It  will  form  the  basis  and 
the  life  of  system  after  system  :  it  will  never  be  itself  a 
system.  And,  because  of  this,  it  has  the  power  of  ex- 
panding with  the  religious  groAvth  of  tlie  world,  and  of 
adajiting  itself  to  the  religious  stand-points  of  various 
nations. 

Men  must  form  systems:  it  belongs  to  our  nature  to  do 
so.  Fifty  years  did  not  pass  after  tlie  death  of  Christ 
before  Christianity  was  cast  into  a  numid,  and  intellect- 
ual projjositions  formed  around  it.  But  exen  then  Saint 
Paul  cast  it  into  one  mould,  and  Saint  John  into  one 
quite  different.    It  was  flexible  to  both,  and  retained 


FITNESS  or  CHKISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND. 


lOT 


in  both  these  men  its  root  ideas  and  its  spiritual  influ- 
ence, so  tliat  its  spirit  througli  Saint  John  liad  jjower 
ny>on  the  Oriental  and  through  Saint  Paul  upon  the 
Western  Avorld. 

A  century  afterward,  the  modes  of  rejjresenting  Chris- 
tianity changed,  and  continiied  to  change  from  genera- 
tion to  generation  in  that  intellectual  time,  till  tliere 
were  as  many  systems  of  Christianity  as  there  were  na- 
tions in  the  Church.  Its  flexibility  Avas  proved  to  be 
almost  infinite.  And  it  has  continued  so  up  to  the  pres- 
ent time.  It  is  sj^stematized  in  three  or  four  forms  in 
Enghmd  at  this  moment,  and  they  may  all  have  perished 
in  a  century;  but  the  spirit  of  Christ's  teaching  will 
have  remained,  expanding  to  suit  the  new  thoughts  of 
men  and  the  j^rogrcss  of  the  whole  nation.  Therefore, 
it  is  contained  in  the  idea  of  Christianity  that  its  out- 
Avard  form  should  be  not  only  subject  to  continual 
change,  but  should  even  be  different  at  one  and  the  same 
time  in  different  nations. 

Hence,  the  fighting  and  opi)Osition  of  sect  to  sect 
which  has  been  objected  to  Christianity  is  one  of  those 
things  which  flow  from  its  very  nature.  If  its  founder 
left  it  unsystematized,  it  was  sure  to  be  systematized  in 
different  ways,  and  these  differences  would  j^roduce  con- 
tention. Contention  is  an  evil,  but  it  is  a  less  evil  than 
the  spiritual  stagnation  which  would  have  followed  uj^on 
a  hard  and  fast  system. 

Moreover,  if  Christianity  was  to  expand,  it  was  neces- 
sary that  its  truths  shoiild  be  the  subjects  of  controversy, 
that  different  and  opposing  systems  might  jjlace  now 
one  of  its  ideas,  now  another,  in  vivid  light ;  so  that,  by 
the  slow  exhaustion  of  false  views,  it  might  come  forth 


108 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


clear  at  last,  unrobing  itself  as  a  mo\intain  from  the 
mists  of  the  dawn. 

Make  any  religion  into  a  system,  define  its  outlines 
clearly,  and  before  long  there  will  be  no  movement  of 
thonght  about  it,  no  enthusiasm  of  feeling,  no  vital  in- 
terest felt  in  its  ideas.  It  suits  the  time  at  which  it  is 
put  forward;  but,  when  that  time  has  passed,  it  has 
nothing  to  say  to  men.  But  let  system  be  foreign  to  it, 
—  let  its  original  ideas  be  capable  of  taking  various  re- 
ligious forms, —  and  it  will  have  the  power  of  expanding 
forever,  of  becoming  systematic  Avithout  ever  binding 
itself  to  system;  changing  its  form  not  only  in  every 
time,  but  in  every  country,  and  growing  in  a  direct  ratio 
to  the  growth  of  the  world. 

Therefore,  we  say  the  original  want  of  system  in 
Christ's  teaching  ensures  its  power  of  expansion,  and 
that  fits  it  for  the  use  of  the  Race  now  and  hereafter. 

But,  if  this  were  all,  it  would  prove  nothing.  There 
must  be  a  quality  in  a  religion  destined  to  be  of  eternal 
fitness  for  men  which  directly  appeals  to  all  men,  or  else 
its  want  of  system  will  only  minister  to  its  ruin.  And,  if 
that  quality  exist,  it  must  be  one  Avliich  we  cannot  con- 
ceive as  ever  failing  to  interest  men,  and  therefore  as 
expanding  with  the  progress  of  Man. 

"We  find  tliis  in  the  identification  of  Christianity  with 
the  life  of  a  perfect  Man. 

"What  is  Christianity?  Christianity  is  Christ, —  the 
whole  of  Human  Nature  made  at  one  with  God.  Is  it 
possible  to  leave  that  behind  as  the  race  advances?  On 
the  contrary,  the  very  idea  supposes  that  the  religion 
which  has  it  at  its  root  has  always  an  ideal  to  present 
to  men,  and  therefore  always  an  interest  for  men.  As 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND.  lOQ 


long  as  men  nre  men,  cm  they  ever  have  a  higher  moral 
conception  of  God  than  that  given  to  them  through  the 
character  of  a  perfect  Man,  and  can  Ave  conceive,  in 
centuries  to  come,  men  ever  getting  beyond  that  idea, 
as  long  as  they  are  in  the  human  state  ?  The  concejition 
of  -what  the  ideal  Man  is  Avill  change,  as  men  grow  more 
or  less  i)erfect,  or  as  mankind  is  seen  more  or  less  as  a 
vast  organism ;  but,  as  long  as  there  is  a  trace  of  imper- 
fection in  us,  tliis  idea, —  that  perfect  humanity,  that  is, 
jjerfect  fatherhood,  perfect  love,  i)erfect  justice, —  all  our 
imj^erfect  goodnesses, —  realized  in  perfection,  and  im- 
personated in  One  Being,  is  God  to  us,  can  never  fail  to 
create  religion  and  kindle  worship.  It  is  the  last  absurd- 
ity, looking  at  the  root  ideas  of  Christianity,  to  say  that 
it  is  ceasing  to  be  a  religion  for  the  race. 

The  "religion  of  Humanity"  and  the  "worship  of 
Humanity,"  considered  as  a  great  and  living  whole,  is 
the  latest  phase  into  which  religion,  ajsart  from  Christian- 
ity, has  been  thrown.  I  am  unable  to  see  how  it  differs, 
so  far  as  it  asserts  a  principle,  from  the  great  Christian 
idea.  Everything  it  says  about  Humanity,  and  our  du- 
ties to  Humanity,  seems  to  me  to  be  implicitly  contained 
in  Christ's  teaching,  and  to  be  no  more  than  an  expan- 
sion of  the  original  Christian  idea  of  a  di\  ine  Man  in 
whom  all  tlie  race  is  contained,  and  who  is,  ideally,  the 
race.  But  I  am  far  from  wishing  tliis  new  religious  idea 
to  be  set  aside  as  unworthy  of  consideration,  nor  do  I 
join  in  the  cry  which  has  been  raised  against  it.  On 
the  contrary,  I  wish  it  to  be  carefully  studied,  that  we 
may  get  all  the  good  out  of  it  we  can,  and  add  many  of 
its  ideas  to  our  present  form  of  Christianity.  Most  of  its 
positive  teaching  is  Christian  in  thought  and  feeling, 


110 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


though  it  denies  or  ignores  otlier  Cliristian  ideas  wliich 
seem  necessary  for  a  human  religion.  It  would  be  un- 
true in  a  Christian  teacher  to  despise  or  abuse  a  religion 
which  puts  self-sacrifice  forward  as  the  foundation  of 
practical  duty,  not  only  among  men,  but  among  societies 
and  nations.  It  Avould  be  equally  untrue,  if  I  did  not 
say  that  the  refusal  to  consider  the  existence  of  a  per- 
sonal God  and  the  immortality  of  man  will,  in  the  end, 
make  that  religion  die  of  starvation. 

But,  with  regard  to  the  special  point  in  question, —  the 
worship  of  a  great  Being,  called  Humanity, —  there  is 
this  difference,  and  it  is  a  radical  one,  between  Cluistian- 
ity  and  the  religion  of  PositiA'ism,  that  the  Humanity 
the  latter  worships  is  indefinite  to  the  religious  emotions, 
while  its  system  is  definite  to  the  understanding.  It  is 
in  this  the  exact  reverse  of  Christianity,  which  has  no 
system  capable  of  being  defined  by  the  understanding, 
and  possesses  a  Human  Person  distinctly  defined  for  the 
emotions.  It  is  plain  that,  if  what  I  have  said  be  Avorth 
anything,  the  definite  sj-stem  in  this  religion  will  be  an 
element  of  death  in  it,  and  forbid  its  contemporaneous 
growth  with  tlie  race.  It  is  no  matter  of  doubt  to  me 
that  tlie  Avorship  of  a  Humanity  —  Avhich  it  needs  an 
active  intellectual  effort  to  conceive,  and  a  large  knoAvl- 
edge  of  history  to  conceive  adequately,  or  Avhich  se- 
cludes one  sex  as  a  special  representative  of  its  ideal 
—  can  ncA'cr  stir  religious  eniotion  nor  awake  action 
based  on  love  to  it,  in  the  mass  of  mankind,  hoAvever 
much  it  may  do  so  in  particular  persons.  The  general 
mass  of  men  reqiiire  that  this  ideal  Man  be  concentrated 
for  them  into  one  person,  Avith  Avhom  they  can  haA'e 
distinct  personal  relations,  Avhom  they  can  jjersonally 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND.  Ill 


love  for  his  love,  and  reverence  for  liis  perfection.  It  ' 
is  not  easy,  knowing  manlvind  as  we  do, —  seeing  its 
meanness,  cruelty,  and  weakness,  as  well  as  all  its  nobil- 
ity,— to  rejjresent  it  to  ourselves  as  an  object  of  wor- 
sliip,  or  to  care  ])articularly  whether  its  blessing  rests  on 
ns  or  not.  Than  this,  it  is  certainly  more  easy  to  con- 
ceive, as  an  object  of  worshi]),  God,  revealed  in  will  and 
character  by  a  j^erfect  Man ;  and  more  simple  to  think 
of  one  Man  embodying  all  the  Race  than  of  the  whole 
Kace  as  one  Man.  It  is  a  more  satisfying  thought  to 
give  our  love  to  human  nature  as  seen  in  Christ,  without 
evil,  full  of  perfect  love  and  sympathy,  both  male  and 
female  in  thought  and  feeling,  than  to  Mankind  as  seen 
in  history.  It  is  more  delightful  to  love  men  as  seen  in 
him,  for  the  glorious  ideal  they  will  attain  to,  than  to 
love  them  as  they  are,  and  without  a  sure  hope  of  their 
eternal  jirogress ;  and  that  the  blessing  of  Christ's  j^er- 
fect  Manhood  and  Womanhood  should  rest  upon  us,  that 
liis  love,  pity,  strength,  support,  and  peace  should  belong 
to  us  and  accompany  iis;  that  he  should  attend  us  as  a 
personal  friend  and  interest  himself  in  our  lives,  till  they 
reach  the  perfection  of  his  life;  and  that  he  should  be 
doing  the  same  for  all  our  brothers  as  for  us, —  does  seem 
more  fitted  to  kindle  worship  and  stir  emotion  than  the 
thought  that  we  arc  parts  of  a  vast  organism  which  con- 
tinues to  live,  like  the  body,  by  the  ceaseless  and  eternal 
death  of  its  parts. 

It  may  be  possible  to  feel  a  pleasure  in  sacrificing 
one's  self  for  the  good  of  this  great  Being  which  lives  by 
consuming  its  own  children,  and  to  enjoy  the  thought  of 
immortality  in  its  continued  progress  Avithout  ever  j^er- 
sonally  realizing  that  immortality.    But,  after  all,  this 


112 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


oversliadowing  and  abstract  "  Humanity,"  which  crushes 
us  Avhile  it  moves  on,  is  not  attractive,  and  is  more 
likely  in  the  end  to  create  desjiair  and  anger  than  to  give 
life  to  hope  and  love. 

But  the  ideal  Man  in  Clirist  is  very  different.  It  de- 
mands the  same  self-sacrifice,  but  it  does  not  aniiihilate 
men.  And  in  itself  it  is  intensely  interesting  to  men, 
because  it  is  so  perfectly  human.  AVliethcr  men  are 
Cliristians  or  not,  that  exquisite  life  of  Clirist  will  always 
attract  them  ;  so  true  to  cliildhood,  youth,  and  manhood; 
so  simple,  yet  so  comjilex ;  so  womanly,  yet  so  manly ; 
in  love,  in  honor,  and  in  truth,  in  noble  endurance,  in 
resolute  will  and  purity,  so  ideal,  yet  so  real  to  tliat 
which  we  feel  we  ought  to  be,  or  may  be,  tliat  there  is 
no  possible  age  of  the  world  in  the  far-off  future  which 
will  not,  as  long  as  men  are  human,  love  tliat  with  the 
love  which  is  worshiji. 

So  the  ideal  manhood,  wliich  is  at  tlie  root  of  Chris- 
tianity, ensures  to  it  a  i)Ower  of  expanding  with  the 
growth  of  the  race;  and  this  power  is  one  2>i'oof  at  least 
of  the  eternal  fitness  of  Christ's  teaching  for  mankind. 

The  third  quality  in  it  which  ensures  its  expansive- 
ness  is  that  it  has  directly  to  do  Avitli  the  subjects  which 
have  always  stirred  the  greatest  curiosity,  awakened  the 
profoundest  thought,  and  produced  the  highest  poetry 
in  man.  And  these  are  the  subjects  which  are  insoluble 
by  logical  analysis,  unknowable  liy  the  understanding: 
"WHiat  is  God,  and  his  relation  to  us?  Whence  have  we 
come?  Whither  are  we  going?  What  is  evil,  and  why 
is  it  here?  What  is  truth,  and  is  there  any  positive 
truth  at  all  ?    Do  we  die  or  live  forever  ? 

It  is  the  fashion  among  some  to  say,  "  Do  not  trouble 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIAKITY  FOR  MANKIND.  113 


yourself  about  the  insoluble  " ;  and  there  are  those  who 
succeed,  2:)erhni3s,  in  doing  so.  Well,  I  think  them 
wrong,  as  they  think  me  wrong.  No  one  feels  more 
intensely  than  I  do  the  pain  of  not  having  things  clear, — 
the  vital  torment  of  a  thirst  ever  renewed,  and  not  as 
yet  fully  satisfied;  but  I  had  rather  keej)  the  pain  and 
the  thirst  than  annihilate,  as  it  seems  to  mc,  a  portion  of 
my  human  nature.  I  must  trouble  myself  about  these 
things,  and  so  must  others;  and  the  trouble  has  its  source 
in  an  integral  part  of  our  human  nature.  We  must  tear 
away  that  part  before  we  can  get  rid  of  these  subjects 
To  deny  that  this  part  of  our  nature  exists  is  absurd;  to 
affirm  tliat  it  has  been  produced  by  education  in  men, 
not  having  originally  been  in  their  nature,  is  to  beg  the 
question.  What  we  have  to  do  with  is  what  lies  before 
us;  and  if  I  were  asked  what  is  the  most  universal  char- 
acteristic of  man,  that  which  most  clearly  distinguishes 
him  from  the  lower  animals,  I  should  answer  that  it  was 
the  passion  for  solving  wliat  is  called  the  insoluble,  the 
desire  of  knowing  what  is  said  to  be  unknowable. 

I  meet  that  longing  everywhere.  There  is  no  history 
which  is  not  full  of  it.  There  is  no  savage  nation  which 
has  learned  the  first  rudiments  of  thought,  in  which 
you  do  not  find  it.  There  is  no  poetry  which  does  not 
bear  the  traces  of  it, —  nay,  whose  nol)lest  passages  are 
not  inspired  by  it.  There  is  scarcely  a  single  philosophy 
which  does  not  work  at  it,  or  at  least  acknowledge  it  by 
endeavoring  to  lay  it  aside.  One  cannot  talk  for  an  hour 
to  a  friend  without  touching  it  at  some  point,  nor  take 
up  a  newspaper  without  seeing  its  influence;  and,  if 
Christ  had  stai-ted  a  religion  for  mankind  with  the 
dictum.  Lay  aside  thinking  about  these  questions,  his 


114 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


religion  Avould  seem  to  be  imfit  for  men :  it  ■would,  liavc 
shut  out  the  whole  of  the  most  cui'ious  part  of  our  being. 
But  he  did  the  exact  contrary:  he  recognized  these 
questions  as  the  first  and  the  most  unportant.  He  came, 
he  said,  for  the  expi'oss  purpose  of  enabling  us  to  solve 
them  sufficiently.  He  said  that  truth  "was  to  be  found, 
that  God  could  be  known,  that  immortality  was  a  reality, 
that  evil  was  to  bo  overthrown,  that  Ave  came  from  God 
and  went  to  God. 

But  to  solve  these  questions  and  to  knoAV  God  is  not 
done  at  once.  It  is  the  work  of  a  lifetime.  Christ  said 
that  there  were  answers  to  be  found :  he  did  not  rcA-eal 
the  answers  at  once.  He  did  not  wish  to  take  away 
from  men  the  discipline  of  personal  effort,  nor  to  free 
them  from  the  pain,  the  victory  over  which  Avould  give 
them  spiritual  strength,  the  endurance  of  which  Avould 
make  them  men.  He  put  them  in  the  way  of  solving 
these  questions  for  themselves.  By  asking  and  seeking, 
by  i)rayer  and  humility,  they  Avere  to  soh  e  the  aj?}^:!!'- 
ently  insoluble.  By  doing  his  will,  by  liA'ing  his  life  of 
holiness,  self-sacrifice,  and  devotion  to  truth,  they  were 
at  last  to  know  the  truth. 

Therefore,  because  these  jjroblems  AA'hich  are  called 
insoluble  were  left  by  Christ  as  personal  questions  which 
CA^ery  man  born  mto  the  world  must  soh-e  for  hunself, 
human  effort  after  God  can  ncA^er  suffer  the  stagnation 
AA'hich  complete  knoAA'ledge  Avould  produce  in  imjjerfect 
man.  Religious  emotions,  tlie  l>lay  of  feeling  and  intel- 
lect around  spiritual  tilings,  desire  after  higher  good, 
prayer,  actiA-e  Avork  toAvard  a  more  jierfect  loA-e  and 
toward  the  Avinning  of  truth,  are  all  kept  up  in  us  by 
the  sense  of  imjaerfect  knowledge,  imperfect  sjairitual 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOK  MANKIND.  115 


being,  and,  iu  addition,  by  the  hope  -wliicli  grows 
stronger  through  tlie  experience  of  growth,  tliat  we 
shall  know  even  as  we  are  known,  and  become  perfect 
even  as  our  God. 

Remove  from  religion  these  difficult  questions,  and 
the  hope  and  the  passion  of  discovering  their  answers, 
and  I  believe  that  all  religious  emotions  will  die,  and  all 
religion  of  any  kind  finally  perish  in  contact  with  the 
world. 

It  is  because  Christianity  as  taught  by  Chi'ist  acknowl- 
edges these  questions  as  necessarily  human  ;  it  is  because 
it  leaves  their  solution  to  jiersonal  effort,  and  so  secures 
an  undying  source  of  religious  effort  and  emotion ;  it  is 
because  it  j^n'omiscs  that  those  who  follow  tho  method  of 
Christ,  and  live  his  life,  shall  solve  them, —  that  Christian- 
ity belongs  to  men,  is  calculated  to  expand,  to  suit  men 
in  every  age.  If  so,  there  is  another  reason  which  may 
be  alleged  for  its  eternal  fitness  for  the  race. 

Lastly,  if  what  Christianity  says  be  true,  that  we  shall 
all  enter  into  a  life  everlasting,  these  three  qualities  in 
Christ's  religion  of  which  I  have  spoken  are  not  without 
their  meaning  or  their  value  to  us  there. 

That  our  religion  should  be  without  a  system  will  en- 
able us,  in  a  new  life  and  under  new  conditions,  to  reor- 
ganize it  without  difficulty,  to  fit  it  into  the  new  circum- 
stances of  our  being,  to  use  it  in  novel  ways. 

That  our  religion  is  a  human  religion,  that  it  appeals 
directly  to  human  nature,  that  it  is  nothing  apart  from 
mankind,  that  it  is  woven  up  with  all  the  desires  and 
hopes  and  sorrows  of  men,  that  it  bids  us  concentrate 
all  the  race  into  One  Person,  and  love  all  men  in  him, 
that  it  throws  all  our  effort  and  enthusiasm  on  the 


116 


TAITH  AND  FBEEDOM. 


progress  of  mankind, —  these  do  not  belong  to  tliis  ■world 
alone.  If  we  live  again,  we  shall  live  in  a  higher  way, 
in  the  race ;  for  we  shall  live  in  Christ,  not  an  isolated 
life,  but  a  life  in  all  mankind.  We  shall  be  more  united 
with  onr  fellow-men,  more  ready  to  give  ourselves  aAvay 
to  them,  "more  interested  in  the  progress  of  mankind, 
more  able  to  help.  Never,  as  long  as  Christ  is,  can  we 
foi'get,  or  cease  our  communion  with,  the  whole  world  of 
men. 

And,  finally,  that  even  after  attaining  much,  enough 
at  least  to  set  us  in  all  the  ])cace  which  is  good  for  us, 
there  should  remain,  as  I  think  there  will  remain,  in  the 
eternal  life,  certain  questions  which  we  shall  have  to 
solve,  certain  things  which  man  cannot  wholly  know,  it 
will  not  be  an  evil,  but  a  good  tiling  for  us.  For  that 
there  should  always  be  things  above  us  and  imknown 
ensures  our  eternal  aspiration,  ensures  to  us  the  passion- 
ate delight  of  ceaseless  progress. 


THE  riTOESS  OF  CHRISTIAOTTT 
FOR  MAI^KHs^D -II. 

1871. 

"Another  parable  put  he  forth  unto  them,-  saving,  The  kingdom  of 
heaven  is  like  to  a,  grain  of  mustard-seed,  which  a  man  took  and 
sowed  in  his  field  :  which  indeed  is  the  least  of  all  seeds ;  but  when  it 
is  grown,  it  is  the  greatest  among  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree,  so  that 
the  birds  of  the  air  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof." — Matt. 
xiiL,  31,  32. 

Those  who  love  variety  of  color  and  variety  of  form 
can  scarcely  reap  a  deeper  pleasure  than  is  his  "w  ho 
walks  slowly  through  the  lower  part  of  one  of  the  Ital- 
ian valleys  of  the  Alps  when  si:)ring  is  at  its  heiglit. 
The  meadows  are  full  of  flowers,  at  once  so  brilliant, 
soft,  and  manifold  of  hue,  that  the  grass  seems  sown  with 
dust  of  rainbows.  The  gray  boulders,  which  lie  like 
castles  on  the  slojjing  lawns,  are  stained  scarlet  and  gold 
and  bronze  with  many  lichens.  Chestnut  and  walnut 
spread  tlieir  rich  leaves  below;  above,  the  oak  clusters 
in  the  hollow  places;  higher  still,  the  pines  climb  the 
heights  in  dark  battalions.  Color,  form,  development, 
are  all  different :  each  flower,  leaf,  and  tree,  each  variety 
of  grass  or  lichen,  has  its  own  peculiar  beauty,  its  own 
individuality. 

It  seems  impossible  to  include  them  all  under  one 


118 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


temi,  to  say  tliat  they  are  all  substantially  one  thing. 
Yet  they  are  all  transmuted  sunshine.  Eveiy  fibre, 
every  cell,  every  atomic  arrangement  "which  enables 
each  of  them  to  give  us  the  sensation  of  red  or  violet, 
or  Avhat  color  lies  between  these,  has  been  built  u]) 
through  means  of  the  force  or  the  forces  of  the  sunshine. 
Nevertheless,  this  one  original  element  has  been  modi- 
fied by  the  tendency —  I  use  a  word  which  but  expresses 
our  ignorance — of  each  seed  to  assume  a  specialized 
form  at  a  certain  stage  in  its  growth,  to  be  modified  by 
what  one  would  call  in  mankind  its  character.  So  that 
we  have  two  things, —  one  simple  source  of  vegetable  life, 
infinite  forms  and  modifications  of  form  through  which 
that  force  is  conditioned. 

It  is  a  happy  analogy  by  which  to  arrive  at  the  idea 
of  the  one  spirit  of  Christ's  life,  received  and  modified 
into  a  thousand  forms  by  different  characters  of  men 
and  different  tj-]Des  of  nations.  Christianity  is  like  the 
sunshine, —  not  a  given  form,  nor  imposing  a  imiform 
system  of  growth :  it  is  a  force  of  sjiiritual  heat  and 
light,  which  expands,  develops,  and  irradiates ;  a  sj^irit- 
ual  chemical  force  which  destroys  dead  things,  and 
quickens  half-living  things  in  the  character.  It  is  as- 
similated, but  according  to  the  original  arrangement  of 
the  sjiiritual  atoins  of  each  character,  so  that  it  does  not 
destroy,  but  enhances  individuality ;  does  not  injure, 
but  intensifies  variety. 

There  has  scarcely  exer  lived  a  single  Christian  man 
whose  Christianity  has  been  identical  in  form  with  that 
of  another,  though  the  species  may  liave  been  the  same. 
There  is  certainly  no  Cln-istian  nation  which  has  j^ro- 
duced   a  type  of  Christianity  uniform  with  that  of 


FITJfESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND.  119 


another.  Look  at  tlie  Apostolic  Clmrch,  read  the  Epis- 
tles which  remain  to  us.  The  letters  of  Saint  James,  of 
Saint  Peter,  of  Saint  Paul,  of  Saint  John,  differ  as  the 
oak  differs  from  the  chestnut,  as  the  fir  differs  from  the 
ash-tree.  Tliese  rcjjrescnt  in  various  forms  "vvhat  the 
sunshine  has  done  for  them :  the  Epistles  represent,  in 
various  forms  of  Christian  thought,  what  the  sjiirit  of 
Christ  had  wrought  in  their  authors. 

I  venture  to  say  that  there  never  has  existed  a  set  of 
religious  books  which  so  manifestly  despised  outAvard 
consistency,  and  so  boldly  fell  back  uj^on  an  inner  unity 
of  spirit;  which,  though  they  systematized  to  a  certain 
extent,  showed  more  plainly,  taken  together,  that  there 
was  no  system  in  the  source  from  whence  they  drew 
their  inspiration ;  which  dared  more  audaciottsly  to  vary 
their  modes  of  expressing  spiritual  truths,  relying  on, 
and  because  of,  their  apjieal  to  the  primary  instincts  of 
mankind. 

This  was  one  of  the  elements  which  we  saw  last  Sun- 
day lay  at  the  root  of  the  success  of  Christianity.  It 
left  individual  and  national  development  free,  and  it  ap- 
pealed to  a  common  humanity.  And,  having  no  system, 
it  i^romoted  liberty  of  growth  in  mankind ;  and  when 
that  growth  had  passed  a  certain  stage,  and  the  charac- 
ter of  the  time  changed,  it  changed  its  form  in  turn  to 
suit  the  new  ideas  of  men.  But,  beneath  all  these 
varied  representations,  there  will  always  be  a  few  clear 
principles,  and  a  spirit  wliich  will  remain  the  same. 
^Vliether  Christianity  exist  as  Calvinist  or  Rittialist, 
Roman  Catholic  or  Lutheran,  Wesleyan  or  Unitarian, 
all  these  forms  will  liave  taken  their  life  and  built  nji 
their  being  from  the  sunlight  of  Christ. 


120 


"FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


It  ■will  1)0  easily  seen  from  this  how  much  I  desjiise 
the  struggle  for  uniformity,  and  how  much  1  dread  it  as 
directly  anti-Christian.  Unity  of  sjtirit  we  should  en- 
deavor to  seek  for,  and  keep  in  the  bond  of  peace ;  but 
uniformity!  Imagine  a  world  in  which  all  the  trees 
were  pines. 

The  effort  to  establish  uniformity  is  not  only  the  note 
of  an  uncultivated  spirit,  it  is  es2iecially  the  mark  of  one 
who  has  not  studied  the  teaching  of  Christ,  nor  the 
teaching  of  the  Apostles.  And  Christianity  has  been 
especially  unfortunate  in  the  way  in  which,  for  many 
ages,  its  followers,  foolishly  disniaj-ed  by  the  cry  of 
inconsistency,  have  made  it  almost  a  jioint  to  struggle 
against  Christ's  altogether  divine  conception  of  a  spirit- 
ual imiverse  of  Avorshippers  at  one  in  the  midst  of  a 
boundless  variety.  Yet  such  is  the  vitality  of  Chris- 
tianity that  it  has  resisted  the  very  efforts  of  its  own 
children  to  nullify  its  qualities,  and  remains  as  before, 
a  spirit  of  liglit  and  a  spirit  of  life,  capable  of  endless 
ex2)ansion,  ready  to  alter  its  form  in  order  to  co-operate 
with  every  human  movement,  and  working  out  in  every 
human  soul  who  recelAcs  it  some  sul)tile  phase  of  its 
beauty,  some  delicate  shade  of  its  tenderness,  some  new 
manifestation  of  its  graces. 

"\ye  have  spoken  so  far  of  the  religion  of  Christ  in 
contact  with  human  character:  let  us  look  at  it  in  con- 
tact with  some  great  human  interests. 

Take  politics.  Other  religions  have  laid  down  jioliti- 
cal  systems,  and  bound  themselves  to  ideas  of  caste,  to 
imperialism,  or  to  socialism.  The  latest  religion  has 
woven  into  its  body  a  most  cumbrous  arrangement  of 
mankind  and  the  nations  of  mankind.  Consequently, 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND.  121 


these  religions,  being  tied  to  tlie  transient,  perished,  or 
will  perish,  with  the  political  systems  to  which  they  are 
bound. 

Christianity  never  made  tliis  mistake.  It  refused  to 
be  mixed  up  with  any  political  system,  or  to  bind  those 
who  followed  it  down  to  any  form  of  political  union,  as 
it  had  refused  to  bind  them  down  to  any  particular  form 
of  religious  union.  Leaving  itself  jierfectly  free,  it 
could  therefore  enter  as  a  spirit  of  good  into  any  form 
of  government.  And  it  did  enter  into  all  forms  —  patri- 
archal, military,  feudal,  monarchical,  imperial,  demo- 
cratic—  as  a  spirit  which  modified  tlie  evils  of  each,  and 
developed  their  good.  It  is  objected  to  Christianity 
that  it  does  not  touch  on  great  political  questions,  such 
as  the  limits  of  obedience  to  a  ruler  or  the  duties  of  the 
State  to  the  citizens,  and  therefore  that  it  is  not  a  relig- 
ion for  men ;  but  it  does  not  touch  directly  on  these 
questions,  because  its  object  was  to  2>enetrate  them  all 
as  an  insensible  influence.  Had  it  decjai-ed  itself  imjoe- 
rialist  or  democratic,  it  would  have  been  excluded  from 
the  one  or  from  the  other.  But,  entering  into  the 
hearts  of  men  as  a  spirit  of  love,  of  asjjiration  after  per- 
fection, of  justice  and  forgiveness,  it  crept  from  man  to 
man,  till  in  every  nation  there  existed  a  body  of  men 
who  had  absorbed  the  spirit  of  Christ,  who  slowly 
brought  about  political  regeneration  tlu'ough  spiritual 
regeneration. 

But  because  it  has  2>revailed  in  countries  where  feudal 
systems  and  the  tyrannies  of  caste  have  ruled,  it  has  been 
accused  of  having  been  on  the  side  of  o])prcssors  of  the 
race.  The  objection  is  plausible,  but  it  is  unfair.  Some 
distinction  is  surely  to  be  made  between  a  church  made 


122 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


into  a  political  organ  and  Christianity  itself.  When  the 
Church,  as  in  France  before  the  Revolution,  became  a 
mere  adjunct  to  the  throne,  and  threw  in  its  lot  with 
tyrants,  it  forswore  its  Christianity.  When  it  estab- 
lished itself  at  Rome  as  a  tyranny  over  men's  souls,  it 
turned  upon  its  Founder  and  recrucified  him.  More- 
over,  if  Christianity  has  been  accused  as  the  handmaid 
of  ojjpression,  it  is  at  least  just  to  look  on  the  other  side, 
and  see  if  it  has  not  been  the  insjjirer  of  the  noblest 
revolutions.  All  its  fundamental  ideas  —  the  Father- 
hood of  God,  the  brotherhood  of  all  men  in.  Christ,  the 
equality  of  all  men  before  God,  the  individual  responsi- 
bility of  every  human  soul,  the  surrender  of  all  things 
for  others,  the  one  necessity  of  salvation  for  all  alike, 
emjieror  and  jjeasant  —  are  spiritual  ideas  which  bear  an 
easy  translation  into  political  ideas,  and  which,  gather- 
ing strength,  have  proved  the  ruin  of  many  tyrannies. 
If  Christianity  has  any  close  relation  with  a  distinct 
political  idea,  it  is  with  the  idea  of  a  high  democracy; 
and  if,  as  some  say,  the  world  is  irresistibly  tending  to 
democracy,  there  is  nothing  in  Christianity  to  prevent  its 
falling  in  with  this  political  tendency.  I  see  no  limit  to 
its  expansion,  should  that  take  place.  On  the  contrary, 
I  think  that  it  will  take  in  democracy  a  farther  and  a 
more  brilliant,  a  freer  and  more  devotional  develo2)ment 
than  ever  it  has  yet  done.  The  atmosphere  will  be  more 
congenial  to  it. 

Again,  take  art.  Greek  religion  lent  itself  to  sculpt- 
ure, but  after  a  time  its  ideas  were  exhausted.  It 
afforded  no  universal  range  of  subjects.  Some  way  or 
another,  human  as  it  was,  it  Avas  not  human  enough  to 
enable  it  to  last.  It  was  of  Greece :  it  was  not  of  man- 
kind. 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND. 


123 


The  religion  of  Mohammed  shut  out  all  jjainting  and 
sculpture  of  living  forms  from  its  sacred  architecture. 
But  the  Romanesque  and  Gothic  builders,  with  a  strange 
instinct  that  in  Christianity  there  was  nothing  irrelig- 
ious, and  that  every  act  of  human  life,  if  done  naturally, 
or  for  just  ends,  even  if  it  were  such  an  act  as  war,  was  a 
religious  act,  and  that  all  the  world,  animate  and  inani- 
mate, was  holy  to  the  Lord  in  Christ,  filled  jiorch  and 
arcade  and  string-course  with  sculjJture  of  all  things  in 
earth  ami  heaven, —  symbolized  the  revolving  year,  made 
parables  of  beauty  and  of  terror,  and  threw  into  breath- 
ing stone  the  hopes,  the  passions,  the  fears,  and  the  faith 
of  Christian  men. 

This  was  but  one  field  of  the  immense  space  which 
Christianity  opened  to  religious  art.  No  limitations 
were  placed  upon  it  by  the  religion.  It  was  left  to  each 
nation,  according  to  its  genius,  to  develop  it  in  its  own 
way. 

It  was  the  same  with  poetry  as  with  architecture.  It 
lost  nothing  by  the  addition  of  the  Christian  element : 
it  gained,  on  the  contrary,  a  great  subject.  And  that 
subject,  in  its  infinite  humanity,  in  the  way  it  has  of 
making  those  who  grasp  it  largely  interested  in  all 
things,  in  the  majesty  which  belongs  to  it,  does  not  pre- 
vent men  from  rising  into  the  grand  style, —  that  style 
which  makes  a  man  feel  himself  divine  as  he  reads.  On 
the  contrary,  of  the  three  poets  who,  since  Christ,  have 
l)Ossessed  this  style  in  |)erfection,  two  employed  all  their 
power  on  subjects  which  belonged  to  Christian  thought. 
The  majesty  of  the  subject  reacted  on  their  power  of 
expression.  They  proved  at  least  that  Christianity  does 
not  exclude,  but  is  expansive  enough  to  include,  the 


124 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


art  of  poetry.  Moreover,  a  religion  which  appeals  to 
human  feeling,  which  is  nothing  apart  from  Man,  whose 
strongest  impulse  is  the  "  enthusiasm  of  humanity,"  can 
never  be  apart  from  an  art  like  that  of  poetry,  which 
withers,  corrupts,  and  dies  when  it  is  severed  from  the 
interests  of  men.  One  may  even  go  further.  Chris- 
tianity has  to  do  with  the  insoluble,  with  visions  which 
love  alone  can  realize,  with  questions  to  which  the  under- 
standing gives  no  reply,  with  feelings  which  cannot  be 
defined,  only  approached,  in  words.  It  is  the  very 
realm  in  which  half  of  the  poetry  of  the  world  has  been 
written. 

There  is  nothing,  then,  to  prevent  Christianity  exist- 
ing in  harmonious  relation,  with  all  true  poetry  from  age 
to  age  of  the  world.  In  itself,  it  gives  a  grand  subject  to 
poetry,  and  both  it  and  poetry  have  similar  elements : 
their  common  appeal  to,  and  their  death  apart  from, 
human  interests  and  feelings ;  their  common  life  in  a 
region  above  the  understanding. 

I  need  not  dwell  on  the  arts  of  music  and  painting. 
Let  us  pass  on  to  science.  Supposing  Christianity  had 
committed  itself  to  any  scientific  statements  or  to  any 
scientific  method :  it  could  never  have  been  fitted  to 
expand  with  the  expansion  of  knowledge,  to  be  a  relig- 
ion for  a  race  which  is  continually  advancing  in  scientific 
knowledge.  If  it  had  bound  itself  up  with  the  knowl- 
edge of  its  time,  it  would  naturally  be  subject  now  to 
repeated  and  ruinous  blows.  If  it  had  anticipated  the 
final  discoveries  of  science,  and  revealed  them,  nobody 
would  have  believed  it  then,  and  nobody  would  proba- 
bly believe  it  now.  Christianity  committed  itself  to 
nothing.    "  Yours  is  not  my  province,"  it  said  to  science. 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND.  125 


"  Do  your  best  in  your  own  sphere,  with  a  single  eye  to 
truth.  I  will  do  my  best  in  mine.  Let  us  not  throw 
barriers  in  each  other's  way.  The  less  we  obstruct  each 
other,  the  more  chance  there  is  of  our  finding  in  the  end 
Tinion  in  the  main  ideas  which  regulate  both  our  worlds 
in  the  mind  of  God." 

Foolish  men  have  mixed  it  up  with  science,  and  en- 
deavored to  bind  each  down  upon  the  bed  of  the  other, 
to  make  science  Christian,  and  Christianity  scientific; 
but  the  result  has  always  been  a  just  rebellion  on  both 
sides.  The  worst  evil  has  been  the  unhallowed  and 
forced  alliance  of  the  doctrine  of  the  plenary  inspiration 
of  the  Bible,  or  of  the  infallibility  of  the  Church,  to 
Christianity.  The  moment  science  was  truly  born,  war 
to  the  death  arose  against  a  form  of  Christianity  M'hich 
violated  the  original  neutrality  of  Christianity  toward 
the  pure  intellect  and  its  pursuit  of  its  own  truths.  But 
get  rid  of  this  alliance,  and  how  is  Christianity  in  oppo- 
sition to  science?  What  is  to  prevent  its  being  a  relig- 
ion fit  for  man  in  that  future  when  the  youngest  child 
will  know  more  than  the  philosopher  of  to-day?  It  is 
no  more  in  actual  oi^jiosition  to  science  than  poetry  is. 

The  river  glideth  at  his  own  sweet  will. 

I  suppose  no  scientific  man  would  run  atilt  at  that.  Its 
thought,  its  feeling,  the  impression  it  is  intended  to 
convey,  are  all  out  of  the  sphere  of  science.  Neverthe- 
less, the  natural  philosojiher  recognizes  that  it  apjjeals  to 
his  imagination.  He  receives  2>leasure  from  it :  he  accepts 
it  as  true  in  its  own  sphere. 

But,  if  he  were  told  that  the  writer  claimed  infallibility 
for  his  expression,  said  that  it  exjjressed  not  only  a  cer- 


126 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


tain  touch  of  human  feeling  about  the  river,  br.t  also  the 
very  physical  truth  about  the  movement  of  the  river,  he 
would  naturally  be  indignant.  "  You  have  left  your  own 
ground,"  he  would  say  to  the  poet,  "where  you  were 
supreme,  and  you  haxe  come  into  mine,  where,  by  the 
very  hypothesis  of  your  art,  you  are  a  stranger.  You 
claim  my  obedience,  here,  in  my  own  kingdom,  the  abso- 
lute surrender  of  my  reason  in  a  realm  where  reason  is 
the  rightful  lord.  You  may  be  a  poet,  but  you  are  deny- 
ing the  first  principles  of  your  art. 

Precisely  the  same  might  be  said  to  those  Avho  are 
ill-informed  enough  to  connect  the  spirit  and  life  of 
Christianity  with  efforts  to  suppress  jjhysical  science  or 
historical  criticism  as  tending  to  infidelity,  or  as  weaken- 
ing Christian  truth.  It  might  be  said  to  them  by  a  wise 
scholar:  "You  may  be  Christians,  but  you  are  doing  all 
the  harm  you  can  to  Christianity.  You  are  endeavoring 
to  bind  an  elastic  and  expanding  spirit  into  a  rigid 
mould,  in  which  it  will  be  suffocated.  You  are  fettering 
your  living  truth  to  jjliysical  and  historical  theories 
which  have  been  proved  to  be  false  and  dead,  and  your 
Christianity  will  suffer  as  the  living  man  suffered  when 
the  cruel  king  bound  him  to  the  corjise.  Your  special 
form  of  Christianity  Avill  grow  corru])t,  and  die,  for  it 
attacks  truth."  But  if  some  Christian  ])eo]ile  have  gone 
out  of  their  sphere,  there  are  not  Avantiug  i)hilosophers 
to  do  the  same.  "I  know  nothing  of  God  and  immor- 
tality," says  science,  and  Avith  an  air  as  if  that  settled  the 
question.  "I  should  think  you  did  not,"  Christianity 
Avould  gravely  ansAver  :  "  No  one  ever  imagined  that  you 
coiild,  but  I  do.  I  do  knoAV  a  gi-eat  deal  about  those 
wonderful  realities ;  and  I  haA'e  given  my  knoAvledge  of 


FITNESS  OF  CHRISTIANITY  FOR  MANKIND.  127 


them  to  inillions  of  the  luiniau  nic-c,  who  have  received 
it,  i)roved  it  through  toil  and  2)ain,  and  found  it  powerful 
to  give  life  in  the  hour  of  death."  "  Pro^•ed  it,"  answers 
science,  "  not  in  my  way,  the  only  -w  ay  worth  having, 
the  way  which  makes  a  thing  clear  to  the  imderstanding." 
But  there  are  liundreds  of  things  which  are  not  and  can- 
not be  submitted  to  such  a  proof.  We  cannot  subject 
the  action  of  any  of  the  jiassions  to  tlie  explanations  of 
the  understanding.  By  reasoning  alone,  we  cannot  say 
Avhat  an  envious,  jealous,  self-sacrificing,  or  joyful  man 
may  do  next,  nor  explain  his  previous  actions.  One 
might  far  more  easily  predict  the  actions  of  a  madman. 

We  cannot  give  any  reason  for  love  at  first  sight,  or, 
Avhat  is  less  rare,  but  as  real,  friendshiji  at  first  sight. 
We  cannot  divide  into  compartments  the  heart  and  soul 
of  any  one  jjerson  in  the  world,  saying.  This  is  the 
boundary  of  that  feeling.  So  far,  this  quality  will  carry 
the  man  in  life.  For  the  understanding  is  but  a  second- 
ary power  in  man.  It  can  multiply  distinctions.  It 
cannot  see  the  sjjrings  of  life  wdiere  the  things  are  born 
about  which  it  makes  distinctions. 

"Night's  candles  are  burnt  out,  and  jocund  day 
Stands  tiptoe  on  the  misty  mountain-tops." 

What  tells  us  that  is  poetry  ?  The  voice  of  the  under- 
standing? "Night's  candles  are  burnt  out,"  it  says: 
"it  is  a  ridiculous  statement  of  the  fact  that  the  stars 
have  ceased  to  shine.  Day  never  stands  tiptoe  on  the 
misty  mountain-tops.  Is  that  poetry  ?  It  is  nonsense." 
But  the  understanding  rarely  acts  alone  in  this  Avay :  a 
higher  power  in  man  proves  to  him,  he  cannot  tell  how, 
that  the  lines  are  inagnificent  poetry, —  nay,  that  the 


128 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


jioetry  is  in  the  very  passages  whicli  the  understanding 
despises. 

Let  each  kecj)  to  their  own  spheres,  and  do  their  work 
therein.  Christianity  has  no  weapons  in  her  original 
armory  which  can  be  wielded  against  science,  and  science 
cannot  attack  spiritual  truths  with  purely  •  intellectual 
weapons.  No  one  asks  for  a  spiritual  proof  tliat  the 
earth  goes  round  tlie  sun  :  it  is  equally  absurd  to  ask  for 
a  j^urely  intellectual  proof  of  the  existence  of  an  all- 
loving  Father.  And  it  would  be  wiser  if  science  kept 
her  hands  off  Christianity.  Mankind  will  bear  a  great 
deal,  but  it  Avill  not  long  bear  the  denial  of  a  God  of 
love,  the  attempt  to  thieve  away  the  hope  of  being 
perfect  and  our  divine  faith  in  immortality.  These 
things  are  more  precious  than  all  physical  discoveries. 
The  efforts  made  to  rob  us  of  them,  when  they  are 
made,  and  tliey  are  but  rarely  made,  are  not  to  be  pa- 
tiently endured.  They  are  far  less  tolerable  tlian  the  ill- 
advised  attempts  of  Christian  men  to  dominate  over 
science.  These  hitter  efforts  are  absurd,  but  the  former 
are  degradino:  to  human  nature. 

It  really  does  not  make  mvich  matter  to  the  race  in 
general  whether  the  whole  science  of  geology  were 
proved  to-morrow  tij  have  been  proceeding  on  a  wrong 
basis,  or  whether  the  present  theory  of  force  be  true  or 
not ;  but  it  would  make  the  most  serious  matter  to  man- 
kind, if  they  knew  for  certain  to-morrow  that  there  was 
no  God  of  justice  and  love,  or  that  immortality  was  a 
fond  invention.  The  amount  of  suppressed  and  latent 
belief  in  these  truths,  which  we  should  then  discover  in 
men,  who  now  deny  them,  would  be  perhaps  the 
strangest  thing  we  should  observe ;  but  it  hath  not  en- 


FITNESS  OF  CHEISTIANITY  FOR  MANKESTD. 


129 


tered  into  the  heart  of  man  to  imnghie  the  awfuhiess 
of  the  revohition  wliich,  following  on  this  denial,  would 
j^enetrate  into  every  corner  of  human  nature  and  human 
life. 

Both  science  and  Christianity  have  vital  and  j^recious 
truths  of  their  own  to  give  to  men,  and  tliey  can  develop 
together  without  interfering  with  each  other.  Should 
science  increase  its  present  knowledge  tenfold,  there  is 
nothing  it  can  discover  which  will  enable  it  to  close  up 
that  region  in  man  where  the  S2>irit  communes  in  prayer 
and  praise  with  its  Father,  where  the  longing  for  rest  is 
content  in  the  i)eace  of  forgiveness,  where  the  desire  of 
being  perfect  in  unselfishness  is  satisfied  by  union  with 
the  activity  of  the  unselfish  God,  where  sorrow  feels  its 
burden  lightened  by  divine  SJ^npathy,  where  strength  is 
given  to  overcome  evil,  where,  as  decay  and  death 
grow  upon  the  Outward  frame,  the  inner  sjjirit  begins  to 
2)ut  forth  its  wings  and  to  realize  more  nearly  the  eternal 
summer  of  his  presence,  in  whom  there  is  fulness  of  life 
in  fulness  of  love.  Xo  :  as  Christianity  can  expand  to 
fit  into  the  progi-ess  of  politics,  and  to  adapt  itself  to  the 
demands  of  art,  so  it  can  also  throw  away,  without  losing 
one  feature  of  its  original  form,  rather  by  returning  to 
its  purer  tyjje,  all  the  elements  opposed  to  the  advance 
of  science  which  men  have  added  to  its  first  simplicity. 

It  will  be  pleasant,  if  what  I  have  said  be  true,  for  all 
of  us  to  meet  five  hundred  years  hence,  and,  interchang- 
ing our  tidings  of  the  earth,  to  find  that  the  thoi;ghts 
and  hopes  of  this  sermon,  in  which  many  of  you  must 
sympathize,  have  not  been  proved  untrue. 


THE  CHA^5'GED  ASPECT  OF  CHEIS- 
TIAl^  THEOLOGY.* 


1873. 

"  I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them 
now." — St.  John  xvi.,  12. 

The  foundation  of  Christian  Theology  is  the  revela- 
tion given  by  Jesus  Christ  with  regard  to  God  in  his 
relation  to  man.  It  Avas  the  flower  of  tlie  previous  reve- 
lations, the  concentration  and  completion  of  the  the- 
ology of  the  past. 

But  did  it  do  as  much  for  the  theology  of  the  future, 
did  it  once  for  all  give  to  man  all  the  knowledge  of  God 
which  he  is  to  have  hereafter?  Our  accredited  teaching 
answers  that  question  in  the  negative.  We  look  for- 
ward to  a  time  when  Christ  shall  come  a  second  time 
and  close  this  dispensation,  and  we,  freed  from  the  bar- 
riers which  darkly  close  us  in,  shall  jjossess  an  immedi- 
ate knowledge  of  God,  see  him  as  he  is,  know  him  even 
as  we  are  known  by  him.  The  revelation  of  Christ, 
then,  did  not  complete  revelation. 

But,  again,  the  question  arises,  Is  this  future  revelation 
to  which  we  look  to  be  a  sudden,  unprepared  revealing 
of  higher  truths  about  God,  or  will  it  be  the  natural 
result  of  a  slow  development  of  truth?    Will  it  be  like 

•A  sermon  preached  before  the  University  of  Oxford. 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY.  131 


tlioso  sudden  creations  of  now  animal  life  and  a  now 
world  which  once  were  hold  to  be  true  in  geological 
science,  or  will  it  follow  the  analogy  of  the  slow  evolu- 
tion which  we  know  has  ruled  the  progress  of  life  and 
the  changes  of  the  face  of  the  earth  ? 

I  believe  in  the  latter  view.  It  will  be  as  much  the 
easy  and  natural  result  of  a  continuous  revelation  which 
is  now  going  on  as  the  Revelation  of  Christ,  eighteen 
hundred  years  ago,  was  the  result  of  a  revelation  which 
had  been  going  on  for  thousands  of  years  before  he 
came.  It  will  not  be  a  new  building  suddenly  upraised 
from  its  foundations :  it  will  be  the  last  stone  laid  u2)on 
a  building  which  God  had  been  laying  stone  by  stone 
from  year  to  year.  In  idea,  then,  the  progress  of  revela- 
tion is  analogous  to  that  which  science  teaches  us  about 
the  progress  of  life,  to  that  which  we  know  of  the  prog- 
ress of  the  race  in  history,  of  the  progress  of  Art,  of 
the  progress  of  Knowledge.  Everywhere  there  is  conti- 
nuity, evolution  without  a  break  ;  and  in  revelation  it  is 
the  same. 

Now,  what  position  does  the  revelation  given  by 
Christ  hold  towai-d  this  continuous  revelation  ?  It  gave, 
in  com])lete  statement,  all  that  was  needed  at  the  time 
it  was  given,  and  tliat  which  was  then  given  in  this  way 
will  always  be  needed  by  man.  But  there  was  much  in 
it  which  was  not  comjiletely  stated,  much  more  than 
appeared  to  the  men  of  that  generation.  It  held  in  it 
not  only  clear  thoughts,  but  germs  of  thought  which 
were  afterward  to  be  developed ;  and  in  their  slow  and 
successive  development  consists  the  continuity  of  revela- 
tion. 

At  first,  they  remained  asleej) ;  but,  as  the  elements 


132 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


fitted  to  make  them  grow  were  added  to  the  soil  of  the 
workl,  tliey  grew  up,  one  after  another,  trees  of  knowl- 
edge and  of  life,  of  whose  fruits  men  took,  and,  eating, 
knew  more  of  God,  of  their  own  being,  and  of  their 
duties  to  tlieir  fellow-men.  Many  of  these  seeds  are 
still  asleep,  and  the  future  extension  of  revelation  con- 
sists in  their  coming  to  the  light  as  the  conditions  under 
which  they  can  sj)ring  up  are  fulfilled  in  the  progress  of 
mankind.  "I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  to  you,"  said 
Christ,  "  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now."  And,  again, 
"  T\Taen  he,  the  S2)irit  of  Truth,  is  come,  he  will  guide 
you  into  all  truth.  .  .  .  He  shall  take  of  mine,  and  shall 
show  it  unto  you."  The  j^rinciple  is  laid  down  in  that 
text ;  for  Ave  ought  not  to  give  it  a  particular,  but  a 
universal  interpretation.  It  was  not  saitl  to  the  A^ios- 
tles  alone,  but  to  all  mankind  in  the  jiersons  of  the 
Apostles. 

It  seems  reasonable,  then,  to  say  that  revelation  is 
not  completed,  but  being  completed;  that  we  look  for 
higher  knowledge  of  God,  for  larger  moral  views  of  his 
relation  to  us  and  of  ours  to  him,  as  time  goes  on  and 
mankind  grows.  Theology  is  not,  then,  a  fixed  science. 
God  has  not  said  his  last  word  to  us,  nor  Christ  given 
his  last  counsel  of  jjcrfection;  nor  lias  the  Spirit  yet 
shown  to  us  the  whole  of  truth.  There  is,  then,  a  reve- 
lation in  the  past,  the  full  meaning  of  which  is  being 
evolved  in  the  progress  of  history. 

We  have  readied  a  certain  point  in  that  development, 
and  a  clearly  marked  one, —  the  i>omt  at  which  theology 
is  at  last  tending  to  become  as  unlimited  in  its  statements 
about  God  and  man  as  the  statements  of  Christ  were. 
To  speak  of  that  and  of  the  duties  it  imposes  on  us  will 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY.  133 


fill  lip  the  second  part  of  this  sermon;  hut,  first,  I  must 
discuss  hoM^  it  is  that  we  have  been  so  long  in  arriving  at 
that  point,  and  how  we  have  arrived  at  it. 

First,  then,  when  Christ  came  on  earth,  he  stated 
ideas  which  were  xuiiversal  in  the  sphere  of  religion, 
and  which  led  directly  to  ideas  universal  in  the  sphere 
of  ])olitics.  There  was  one  universal  Father,  and  all 
men  of  every  nation  were  his  children.  There  was 
therefore  only  one  nation,  the  nation  of  mankind  ;  and 
all  were,  because  children  of  one  Father,  brothers  to 
each  other.  And,  because  all  were  children  and  need- 
ing redemption,  there  was  a  universal  education  and  a 
universal  salvation.  Beyond  all  the  differences,  then,  of 
mankind,  there  was  one  spiritual  country  of  Avhich  all 
were  equally  citizens,  with  equal  duties  and  equal  rights; 
and  every  citizen  of  that  country  had  an  unrestricted 
right  to  personal  development  and  communion  with  God 
his  Father.  These  are  what  I  call  universal  ideas;  and 
they  bore  an  easy  translation  into  the  social  and  political 
life  of  classes  and  nations,  and  it  was  their  fate  to  be  so 
translated.  But  not  at  once  :  that  was  impossible.  It 
is  true  they  were  so  translated  by  the  early  Christians, 
on  whom  the  ideas  of  the  world  around  them  had  little 
jiower,  in  whose  hearts  still  glowed  the  personal  influence 
of  the  Saviour  ;  but,  the  moment  they  passed  from  the 
narrow  circle  of  the  believers  into  contact  with  the 
Roman  world,  they  not  only  ceased  to  be  transferred  to 
the  social  life  of  men,  but  they  lost  also  their  universal 
character.  For,  being  universal,  they  could  not  be  un- 
derstood or  received  Ijy  a  world  to  Avhich  all  universal 
ideas  were  unknown  except  the  idea  of  universal  empire, 
and  that  one  universal  idea  was  in  direct  antagonism  to 


134 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


their  spirit.  The  elements  of  tlie  -world  then  entered 
into  Christianity  and  changed  its  form,  and  the  main 
element  of  that  world  Avas  Imperialism.  It  stole  into 
the  doctrines  of  the  Chnrch,  and  the  idea  of  God  in  his 
relation  to  ns  was  formed  in  accordance  with  the  impe- 
rial idea  with  which  Rome  had  impressed  the  world, 
and  M'ith  the  exclusive  and  particular  ideas  of  that  time. 
It  stole  into  the  polity  of  the  Church,  and  it  became 
imperial  in  spirit  and  in  form  ;  and  the  democratic  ele- 
ment, as  it  has  been  called,  in  the  ideas  of  Christ,  was 
laid  asleep  for  a  time. 

We  may  regret  this,  but  we  must  not  forget  that  it 
was  necessary.  If  tlie  Christian  ideas  were  to  enter 
men's  hearts  at  all,  they  were  obliged  to  take  forms 
suited  to  the  times.  But  in  taking,  both  in  doctrine 
and  in  ])olity,  such  forms,  they  were  stripped  of  their 
universality.  And  they  could  not  help  this.  To  declare 
a  universal  doctrine  of  Fatherhood,  Salvation  and  Broth- 
erhood to  a  world  steeped  in  the  political  and  social  the- 
ories of  the  Empire,  would  have  been  to  suppress  Chris- 
tianity for  a  time.  It  had  to  be  imperialistic,  or  it  Avould 
not  have  been  received. 

That  is  one  j^oint,  and  another  follows  from  it :  that 
this  form  which  the  thoughts  of  Christ  took  in  the 
Church  was  not  the  creation  of  the  Church,  half  as 
much  as  it  was  the  creation  of  the  world  which  sur- 
rounded the  Chui-ch.  It  was  imposed  on  Christianity 
from  without:  the  existing  jiopular  A'iews  necessarily 
made  the  garments  of  Christianity. 

Tliat  was  the  fate  of  tlie  outward  revelation  of  Christ. 
Meantime,  the  ideas  of  Christ,  though  received  under 
worldly  forms,  entered  into  men's  hearts  and  did  their 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY.  135 


work  tliere ;  and  tlie  inner  revelation  wliieh  is  wrought 
out  by  tlie  Spirit  of  God  in  men  began  to  grow.  The 
ideas  of  Christ  were  wide  as  the  workl,  the  form  they 
took  was  nan-OAv,  but  tlieir  universal  spii'it  penetrated 
into  the  heart  and  set  up  a  subtiie  and  hidden  resistance 
to  their  exclusive  form.  Tlie  Sj^irit  took  the  things  of 
Christ  and  showed  them  to  men. 

The  same  things  are  true  with  regard  to  intolerance 
and  persecution.  It  became  natural  for  the  Cliureh  to 
insist  on  the  opinions  it  held  being  received  by  all. 
Natural,  because  it  was  the  fashion  of  the  day  in  other 
realms  than  those  of  religion.  Rome  did  not  tolerate 
the  expression  of  free  opinion  against  its  government. 
It  searched  it  out,  and  ruthlessly  put  it  down.  No  one 
thought  that  it  did  wrong  in  doing  so.  It  was  deter- 
mined to  force  all  nations  into  the  Roman  mould,  to 
compel  them  to  adopt  and  live  by  the  Roman  ideas. 
And  this  view  of  things  naturally  entered  into  Chris- 
tianity, when  it  grew  into  form  in  a  Church ;  and  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  the  Church  to  have 
been  so  far  beyond  its  time  as  not  to  be  as  intolerant  of 
difference  of  religious  opinion  as  the  State  Avas  of  dif- 
ference of  ])olitical  opinion,  as  not  to  have  tried  to  force 
all  men  to  believe  the  same  things  in  tlie  same  wav.  It 
had  to  be  intolerant  and  pei'secuting. 

It  has  been  held  up  to  hatred  because  of  tliis.  But 
again  I  say,  this  was  not  the  creation  of  tlie  Cliurcli 
alone,  but  of  the  people  also.  The  Church  was  intol- 
erant and  persecuting.  What  else  could  she  be?  It 
was  the  spirit  of  the  whole  time  for  centuries.  If  she 
alone  had  escaped  that  evil,  it  would  have  been  miracu- 
lous.   And  tolerance  would  not  have  been  understood, 


136 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOIM. 


and  would  have  mot  then  with  universal  blame.*  Not 
to  force  truth  on  men  by  every  means  in  one's  power, 
not  to  put  away  those  Avho  opposed  it,  would  have 
argued  that  one  did  not  care  for  truth,  that  in  itself  it 
Avas  worthless.  It  is  perhaps  too  great  a  j^aradox,  and 
yet  there  is  much  truth  in  it,  to  say  that  it  was  neces- 
sary, in  order  that  the  spirit  of  Christ's  tolerance  should 
insensibly  creep  into  men's  hearts,  tliat  his  ideas  should 
for  a  time  be  clothed  in  the  garment  of  intolerance. 
That  was  again  the  fate  of  the  outer  Revelation,  but  at 
the  same  time  the  ideas  of  Christ,  even  through  tliis 
alien  form,  stole  into  the  hearts  of  men,  and  wrought 
out,  under  the  guidance  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  a  practical 
charity,  even  an  international  kindness  unknown  before. 
The  seeds  of  tolerance,  of  free  thought,  and  the  love  of 
it,  were  sown  in  the  world.  An  inner  revelation  grew 
up  in  opposition  to  the  form  which  the  Church,  in- 
fluenced by  worldly  elements,  had  given  to  the  revela^ 
tion  of  Clirist. 

It  would  be  too  long  now  to  show  how  the  same  kind 
of  thing  took  place  when  that  which  has  been  called  the 
Fevidal  System  took  form,  and  the  aristocratic  element 
which  grew  out  of  feudalism  divided  men  sharjily  into 
classes,  isolated  them  from  each  other,  and  crejit  into 
the  conceptions  of  God  and  Heaven  and  Earth  which 
both  Protestant  and  Catholic  set  forward;  and  how, 
Avith  this,  intolerance  and  persecution  grew  stronger. 

But  again,  as  before,  these  elements  of  doctrine  and 
practice  were  more  the  creation  of  the  world  than  the 
Church.  Again,  as  before,  the  ideas  of  Christ,  though 
their  form  was  worldly  and  evil,  made  way,  and  far 


*  See  the  history  of  Theodoric. 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY.  137 


more  than  before.  Even  in  tlie  Cliurch  itself,  the  relig- 
ious orders  spread  far  and  wide  more  democratic  views 
of  man;  and,  both  within  and  without  the  Church,  a 
rapidly  accumulating  series  of  new  impulses,  collected 
by  us  now  under  the  name  of  the  Renaissance,  tended 
toward  freedom  of  tliought,  a  larger  charity  and  tol- 
erance, and  in  religion  produced  men  like  Erasmus, 
whose  teaching, '  almost  as  large  as  advanced  modern 
thought,  was  also  far  larger  than  his  time  could  receive. 

On  the  wliole,  then,  tMO  things  a])pear  to  be  true. 
First,  that  the  Revelation  of  Christ  was  taught  by  the 
Church  through  forms,  both  of  doctrine  and  jiractice, 
whicli  Avere  created  by  the  spirit  of  the  world,  and  that 
it  could  not  have  been  received  at  all,  except  it  had  been 
taught  through  these  forms :  that  therefoi-e  the  imjie- 
rial  and  aristocratic  elements  in  the  Church  were  not 
created  by  the  religious  body  acting  alone,  but  by  the 
whole  spirit  of  the  age.  The  priests  were  not,  as  their 
opponents  say,  the  tyrants  who  invented  these  things : 
they  were  the  mouthj^ieces  of  general  opinion.  It  is 
said.  As  the  priest,  so  the  people:  it  is  far  truer  to  say, 
As  the  people,  so  the  priest. 

And  it  follows  that  these  elements  and  the  forms 
under  which  Christianity  was  represented  were  not 
then  seen  as  evil  b^'^  the  peoi)le  nor  by  the  Church,  but 
were  considered  good  thin£rs. 

Secondly,  that,  in  spite  of  the  forms  in  Miiich  the 
universal  ideas  of  Christ  Avere  cast  being  evil,  though 
not  known  as  evil  then,  they  entered  into  men's  hearts, 
and  in  their  slow  growth  is  to  be  sought  the  real  work 
of  the  Spirit  of  God  in  the  development  of  Cliristianity. 
How  shall  I  make  it  more  clear?    The  direct  influence 


138  FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 

of  Christianity  had  to  be  exercised  tlirough  evil  forms; 
but,  since  tliey  were  not  looked  ajjon  as  evil  by  the  world 
of  the  time,  its  inner  influence  was  not  corrupted  by 
them.  But  that  inner,  indirect  influence  in  men's  hearts 
worked  against  those  forms,  and  slowly  undermined 
them;  and  in  the  subtile,  hidden  growth  of  its  ideas,  and 
the  liA-ing  spiritu.al  force  they  created,  tending  ever  to  a 
wider  a-icm^  of  God's  love  to  man,  a  larger  view  of  the 
equal  comniunion  of  man  with  man, —  to  the  destruc- 
tion of  intolerance  in  religion  and  of  o])j)ressive  systems 
in  society,  to  tlie  freedom  of  man's  soul,  and  the  free- 
dom of  all  from  every  form  of  tyranny, —  consists  the 
revelation  of  God  through  Man  in  history,  the  true  work 
of  the  S])irit  of  Christ,  taking  liis  things  and  showing 
them  unto  us.  We  look,  then,  to  the  ideas  which  the 
Sjiirit  of  God  has  evolved  in  history  out  of  the  seeds 
which  Christ  sowed  for  the  truest  form  of  his  revelation, 
not  to  the  forms  into  which  the  Church  threw  only  a  por- 
tion of  the  thoughts  of  Christ. 

And,  now,  the  resistance  which  this  inner  spirit  of 
Christ's  ideas  had  set  uj)  against  the  restrictive  forms 
imposed  on  them  from  without  gradually  took  more 
force  to  itself,  ^^assed  from  the  inward  to  the  outward, 
formulated  itself  in  thought,  set  on  fire  no  longer  indi- 
viduals, but  masses  of  men,  and  became  a  revolutionary 
power  in  tlie  world.  Mixed  as  it  was  with  much  evil,  it 
was  indeed  an  angel  wliicli  troubled  the  Bethesda  pool 
of  Europe ;  and  it  brought  healing  with  it  to  the  life  of 
men.  For  it  was  the  coming  to  the  light  of  the  true 
conceptions  of  Christ. 

Sometimes,  they  took  greater  strength  from  the  side 
of  religion.    A  2)rophet  came,  or  a  priest  turned  into  a 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTD^  THEOLOGY.  139 


proplict  ami  proclaimed  tliom.  Sometimes,  on  the  other 
liaud,  they  were  pushed  forward  from  tlie  side  of  irrelig- 
ion.  Those  in  whom  the  ideas  of  Christ  were  working 
Avcre  often  and  naturally  thrown  into  opposition  to  the 
Church  wlien  the  Church  joined  itself  to  the  ojipressors 
of  the  people,  or  sought  to  exercise  its  own  spiritual 
tyranny.  Then  these  men  became  infidels ;  and  we  have 
the  curious  spectacle  of  those  who  denied  Christ  teach- 
ing the  thoughts  of  Clirist,  blindly  working  the  will  of 
Heaven.  But,  from  whatever  source  these  ideas  came, 
they  grew  and  gathered  strength  as  the  years  rolled  on, 
till  at  last  —  in  the  proclamation  that  all  men  had  equal 
duties  which  made  equal  rights,  that  there  was  but  one 
nation,  the  nation  of  Mankind,  one  class,  the  class  of 
Man,  that  all  were  brothers  and  citizens  of  one  country, 
that  all  were  free  and  bound  to  sacrifice  their  own  good 
for  tlie  good  of  all,  that  caste  and  the  whole  range  of 
systems  bound  up  with  it  was  a  sin  against  the  whole 
race — the  universal  ideas  which  Christ  had  given  in 
religion  took  form  in  the  social  and  political  worlds,  and 
the  doom  of  imj^erial,  aristocratic,  exclusive  theories  in 
politics,  society,  and  religion  was  sealed.  Bclshazzar  in 
Cliurch  or  in  State  alike  looked  up  and  saw  the  fiery  let- 
ters grow  on  the  walls  of  the  world,  which  told  him  his 
time  had  come.  At  last,  the  inner  revelation  had  come 
to  the  surface,  and  proclaimed  itself  as  the  Gospel  of  Man 
in  the  realms  of  social  and  political  life.  Then  for  the 
first  time  it  became  possible  for  the  world  to  understand 
or  receive  a  wide  tlieology.  For,  in  that  long  struggle, 
the  ideas  of  the  world,  which  were  opposed  to  the  univer- 
sal spirit  in  those  of  Christ,  were  sifted,  tried,  e.vhausted, 
— that  Avhich  was  good  in  them  wrought  into,  that  which 
was  bad  in  them  wrought  out  of,  the  body  of  society. 


140 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


Look  round  now  ujion  the  world.  The  spirit  of  the 
whole  age  is  exactly  contradictory  of  that  which  at  its 
first  contact  with  the  world  stripped  Cliristianity  of  its 
universality ;  the  leading  ideas  of  the  time  have  become, 
both  here  and  in  Europe,  universal  on  the  subject  of 
Man;  philosojihers,  historians,  j^oets,  and  the  mass  of 
the  peojile,  have  preached,  and  are  full  of  these  ideas : 
it  has  therefore  become  possible,  for  the  first  time  in  the 
history  of  the  world,  to  have  a  theology  whicli  shall  be 
universal  in  spirit,  tolerant  in  practice,  and  adequate  in 
its  conception  of  God. 

The  doctrines  of  the  universal  Fatherhood  of  God,  of 
the  whole  world  as  the  Church  of  God  in  idea,  and  to 
become  so  in  fact ;  of  the  education  of  every  soul  of 
man  to  perfection  at  last,  since  all  are  necessarily  in  God, 
and  can  never  be  finally  divided  from  him  ;  of  universal 
Salvation,  of  universal  Immortality ;  of  the  Avhole  Race 
being  held,  sanctified,  and  redeemed  in  Christ ;  of  the 
final  glory,  when  all  who  have  ever  lived  shall  know 
their  equal  Brotherhood  and  do  its  duties,  which  universal 
love  will  make  delight, —  these  have  now  for  the  first 
time  become  possible  in  theology,  and  all  the  doctrines 
which  ojipose  or  deny  them  are  tottering  to  their  fall. 
The  force  of  that  popular  opinion  which  is  the  result  of 
the  work  of  God's  Sj^irit  in  man  is  against  them,  and 
their  days  are  numbered.  We  see  already  that  political 
and  social  ideas,  Avhich  are  universal  as  regards  man,  are 
working  their  way  into  the  theology  of  Europe,  and 
re-creating  its  forms.  For  as  the  people  and  the  sj^irit 
of  the  past  had  made  the  Church  limited  in  thought 
and  persecuting  in  practice,  so  now  they  will  make  it 
tolerant  in  j)ractic2  and  universal  in  thought.  The- 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY.  141 


ological  ideas  will  slowly  but  surely  harmonize  them- 
selves with  the  universal  ideas  in  the  social  and  political 
kingdoms,  and  we  shall  have  a  religion  fitted  for  the 
farther  growth  of  Man. 

In  fact,  for  the  first  time  in  history,  and  after  a  sus- 
tained battle,  we  have  nearly  worked  up  to  the  level  at 
■wdiich  Christ  spoke.  We  stand  upon  his  platform;  we 
know  what  he  meant  when  he  said,  "I  have  yet  many 
things  to  say  to  you,  but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now." 
There  is  a  clear  path  of  progress  before  us ;  and  it  will 
not  be  long  before  we  may  run  along  it  with  joy,  looking 
unto  Jesus,  the  author  and  finisher  of  our  faith. 

This,  then,  is  the  point  at  whicli  the  world  has 
arrived.  This  is  our  remai'kable  and  unprecedented 
position  in  tlie  history  of  religious  2)rogress. 

But,  though  that  is  the  jiosition,  there  are  few  who 
recognize  it,  and  scarcely  any  Av^ho  occupy  it  with  a 
knowledge  of  what  is  wanted. 

Tliat  which  is  needed  is  a  theology  which  will  repre- 
sent in  its  own  realm  and  with  equal  breadth  of  view 
the  ideas  which  have  arisen  with  regard  to  Man,  both  in 
his  social  and  j^olitical  relations.  It  is  wanted,  because 
men,  who  have  consciously  adopted  these  ideas,  or  who 
unconsciously  live  by  them  and  in  their  atmosphere,  are 
desiring  a  religion  and  a  theology  which  will  not  only 
enable  them  to  link  their  views  about  mankind  to  God, 
but  also  supply  them  with  a  higher  enthusiasm  in  the 
practical  working  of  those  vieAvs  than  irreligious  jiliilos- 
ophies  of  Man  can  giA'e.  For  the  first  thing  one  feels  in 
lookmg  round  on  society  is  that  there  is  no  Avant  of  the 
desire  to  be  religious,  but  that  the  desire  despairs  of 
finding  a  form  in  which  it  can  clothe  itself,  and  re- 


142 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


mains,  therefore,  a  vague  as])iration,  without  ahility  to 
act  or  even  sense  to  know  itself. 

Such  men  look  naturally  to  the  Church  or  to  tlie  vari- 
ous religious  bodies  of  the  country  for  some  theology 
which  they  can  harmonize  with  the  universal  ideas  aliout 
Man,  of  which  I  have  spoken  ;  and  the  search  is  in  a  ain. 
On  the  contrary,  they  find  in  the  Church  the  old  jKiliucal 
and  social  ideas  still  retained,  and  in  both  the  Church 
and  Dissent  religious  ideas  such  as  the  salvation  of  tnily 
a  few,  which,  wholly  out  of  harmony  with  their  vicAV  f>f 
Man,  are  yet  imposed  on  them  as  necessary  to  believe,  if 
they  would  be  religious.  The  result  is  an  immediate 
recoil  from  theology  and  even  religion,  violent  in  some, 
sorrowful  in  others,  but  resolute  in  both.  Left  utterly 
unhelped,  feeling  this  irreconcilable  antagonism,  they 
become  angry  infidels  or  quiet  sceptics.  And  this  infi- 
delity and  scepticism  is  becoming  more  wide-sjjread  day 
by  day.  It  is  unfortunate,  but  it  cannot  be  helped ;  and 
it  will  continue,  and  must  continue  to  spread,  until  the 
harmony  I  speak  of  is  established,  till  the  ideas  of  theol- 
ogy on  God  and  Man  are  as  universal  in  their  sphere  as 
those  of  the  movement  called  the  Revolution  are  on  the 
subject  of  Man. 

A  few  are  trying  to  do  this,  but  no  class  of  thinkers, 
as  a  class,  are  doing  it;  and  the  result  is  that  there  is  a 
dead-lock  to-day  between  religion  and  life.  There  is  no 
attempt  to  construct  an  adeqtiate  theology  for  the  new 
world.  We  hear  nothing  but  negations  of  what  others 
hold,  and  one  is  very  wearied  of  negations.  "Every 
work  of  opposition  is  a  negative  work,  and  a  negation 
is  a  nonenity.  If  I  have  called  tlie  bad  bad,  have  I 
gained  much  ?    But,  if  by  chance  I  called  the  good  bad, 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY.  143 


I  have  done  a  great  evil.  He  ^vllo  wislies  to  be  of  use 
to  the  Avorld  ought  not  to  insult  anything.  That  which 
is  bad  will  die  of  itself ;  and  our  work  is  to  build,  and 
not  to  overthrow."  But,  in  order  to'  build,  we  Avant  a 
plan;  and  Ave  cannot  make  a  plan  till  Ave  knoAv  the  Avants 
of  the  Avorld  for  Avhich  Ave  build. 

The  Church  makes  A'arious  efforts,  but  none  of  them 
touch  the  time.  Some  are  re-creating  the  Past  and  try- 
ing to  fit  it  to  the  Present.  It  is  pouring  new  wine  into 
old  bottles,  and  Ave  can  jiredict  the  result. 

Some  are  trying  to  prove  that  Christianity  is  nothing 
but  a  high  morality,  and  asking  the  unbelievers  to  find 
all  they  desire  in  that  view.  But  men  may  have  as  high 
a  morality  as  is  necessary  for  life  here,  and  be  Atheists ; 
and,  unless  the  Church  has  something  higher  than  moral- 
ity to  offer,  it  will  give  no  help  to  the  Avorld.  And, 
unless  it  has  more  than  a  high  morality  to  offer,  it  has 
ceased  to  be  Christian.  For,  as  in  all  Art,  so  in  Chris- 
tianity, its  direct  end  is  not  to  make  men  moral,  but  to 
aAvaken  in  them  those  deep  emotions,  and  to  present  to 
them  those  high  ideals,  which,  felt  and  folloAved  after, 
Avill  not  only  indirectly  produce  morality,  but  aspiration 
and  effort  to  do  far  more  than  men  are  absolutely  bound 
to  do  by  the  moral  law. 

Some  are  saying  that  the  religion  for  man  is  contained 
in  the  spirit  of  Christ's  life, —  in  being  gentle,  kind,  Ioa'- 
ing,  true,  and  forgiAdng.  I  am  sure  that  teaching  of 
that  kind  alone  Avill  not  put  an  end  to  sce])ticism.  Men 
Avant  a  theology  as  Avell  as  a  daily  religion  of  "sAveet 
reasonableness,"  Avant  the  intellect  satisfied  as  Av.ell  as 
the  heart.  They  Avish  for  ideas  under  Avhich  they  can 
collect  their  thoughts  with  regard  to  the  questions  in- 


144 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


volved  in  the  relation  between  God  and  man,  such  as 
4he  Being  of  God,  what  Nature  and  Man  and  Evil  are  in 
relation  to  him,  forgiveness  of  sins,  immortality,  the 
future  fate  of  the"  race.  It  wall  not  be  enough  to  say  to 
men  asking  for  light  on  these  subjects:  "I  can  say  noth- 
ing clearly.  I  do  not  knoM-,  but  I  can  tell  you  to  live 
the  life  of  Christ."  Why,  the  very  thing  which  Avearies 
them  into  scepticism  is  that  they  have  no  clear  vision ; 
and  it  does  not  helj)  them  to  hear  confessions  of  igno- 
rance rejieated.  If  we  wish  to  lead,  we  must  be  able  to 
assert  sometliing  clearly;  and  that  which  we  assert  must 
be  in  harmony  with  those  new  thoughts  about  mankind 
which  02)enly  took  form  at  the  end  of  the  last  century. 

Then  we  ask  what  Unbelief  is  doing.  Is  it  heljiing 
the  world  ?  It  has  on  one  side  deified  negations;  and  to 
accustom  the  intellect  and  imagination  to  denial  is  to 
rob  it  finally  of  the  power  of  construction.  Nothing  so 
retards  the  advance  of  the  world  as  to  put  negations  in 
the  place  of  assertions,  and  to  idolize  them  as  if  they 
were  ideas.  No  idolatry  is  worse  than  that,  no  super- 
stition is  more  degrading ;  and  it  is  the  general  error  of 
the  infidel  party.  On  tlie  other  side,  those  of  them  who 
have  made  a  religion  have  taken  out  of  it  God  and 
Immortality;  and,  though  a  few  can  l)ear  the  loss  of 
*  these  ideas,  it  leaves  the  mass  of  men  without  a  centre 
for  thought,  without  any  support  for  noble  emotions, 
without  any  courage  or  hope  or  faith  in  the  future  of 
Man.  Again,  as  to  the  scientific  unbelief,  its  present 
tendency  is  more  and  more  toward  Materialism  ;  and,  if 
that  were  once  largely  received  by  the  unintelligent 
masses,  it  would  ra]>idly  tend  to  destroy  ideas  of  any 
kind  and  their  influence.    And  even  those  thoughts  of  a 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY.  145 


coiiiinon  mankind,  of  one  humanity,  of  equal  duties  owed 
to  all,  of  the  equal  rights  of  all  to  self-development, 
wliich  have  done  so  much  to  civilize,  soften,  and  ennoble 
Man,  would  aftei-  a  time  cease  to  have  jjower,  and  finally 
cease  to  exist,  Avere  materialism  to  win  tlie  day.  On  the 
side  of  Unbelief,  little  is  doing  to  set  forward  the  world, 
much  to  retard  it.  For  Philosophy  and  Art,  Moralit}' 
and  Piiilanthrojiy,  unless  Religion  and  its  enthusiasm 
exist  alongside  of  them,  dry  up  into  mere  systems,  or 
take  corrupt  and  even  unnatural  forms,  Avhich  the  world 
is  obli<jed  to  get  rid  of  in  the  end. 

In  every  case,  then,  but  little  is  doing  to  give  a  relig- 
ion to  the  really  jiOAverful  ideas,  to  those  wider  concep- 
tions of  Man  which,  first  taken  up  in  England  by  the 
j^oets,  have  now  filled  nearly  every  sphere  of  thought 
with  their  influence ;  and  that  nothing  is  doing  is  a  great 
pity  for  the  sake  of  the  ideas  themselves,  for  they  only 
possess  half  their  normal  power  without  a  religion  in 
harmony  with  them ;  nor  have  we  any  notion  how  they 
would  jjush  tlieir  way,  if  they  had  a  theology  behind 
them  Vhich  should  rejiresent  them.  Till  that  is  done, 
we  shall  have  our  scepticism. 

But  those  within  the  Church  who  see  the  position  at 
wliieli  the  world  has  arrived  have  a  clear  duty  and  a 
noble  woi"k  to  do.  They  have,  first,  to  take  away  from 
theology,  and  esi)ecially  from  its  idea  of  God  and  his 
relation  to  Man,  all  exclusive  and  limited  concejjtions, 
all  also  that  are  tainted  by  the  influence  of  those  ideas 
which  crept  into  it  from  the  s])irit  of  the  imperial,  aristo- 
cratic, and  intolerant  ages.  They  have  to  harmonize 
theology  by  the  progress  of  the  world,  by  asserting  in  it 
ideas  as  universal  with  regard  to  Man  and  God  as  those 


146 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


which  tlie  Spirit  of  God  lias  tauglit  the  world  with  re- 
gard to  man  and  his  fellow-man.  They  have,  in  fact,  to 
bring  the  outer  teaching  of  Christ's  revelation  up  to  the 
level  of  that  inner  one  which  has  now  become  outward 
in  society  and  politics,  to  confess  and  accept  this  as  the 
work  of  God ;  and,  having  done  that,  to  look  back  to 
Christ's  words  and  life,  and  say,  "At  last,  we  arc  free 
from  perversions  of  his  Thoughts;  at  last,  we  breathe 
his  atmosphere ;  at  last,  Ave  know  what  he  meant ;  and, 
since  this  is  what  he  meant  in  society,  we  will  make  our 
theology  mean  the  same." 

And,  secondly,  that,  in  accordance  Avith  this,  their 
teaching  in  the  Church  should  heartily,  l)ut  temperately, 
go  Avith  the  ideas  Avhich  are  collected  round  the  Avords 
Liberty,  Equality,  and  Fraternity  ;  not  serving  the  Avild 
image  Avhich  France  made  of  them,  but  the  image  Avhich 
an  honest  and  a  just  idealism  jsresents  to  our  hojse.  Not 
that  the  Church  should  proclaim  these  social  ideas  as 
part  of  its  teaching,  for  that  is  not  its  Avork,  but  that  it 
should  ncA'er  hesitate  to  symijathize  Avith  them  through, 
and  by  means  of,  its  religious  teaching ;  that  it  -should 
cease  to  support  Avith  its  voice  all  institutions  and  gOA'- 
ernmonts  Avhich  ojjpress  or  hamper  the  free  growth  of 
the  peojjle  ;  that  it  should  set  itself  loose  from  the  ideas 
of  caste  ;  that  it  at  least  should  say,  "  I  liaA'e  nothing  to 
do  Avith  upper,  middle,  or  lOAver  classes,  but  all  men 
before  me  stand  on  the  same  ground,  as  sons  of  God  and 
brothers  of  each  other";  that  it  should  pay  no  longer 
any  special  honor  to  Avealtli  or  rank  for  their  OAvn  sake, 
but  only  see  in  any  man  his  character  as  a  member  of 
Christ,  and  speak  as  much  home  to  the  vices  and  follies 
of  rich  and  titled  jjersons  as  to  those  of  the  jioor,  and 


CHANGED  ASPECT  OF  CHRISTIAN  THEOLOGY.  147 


more  sternly,  inasinucli  as  it  is  more  difficult  to  make 
them  feel,  owing  to  traditionary  pride ;  that  it  should 
take  its  stand  on  ideas,  not  on  custom ;  on  jarinc-ijiles, 
not  on  maxims ;  on  love,  not  on  law ;  that  it  should  live, 
looking  not  to  the  Past  and  Present  only,  but  chiefly  to 
the  Future  of  Mankind,  and  organize  its  action  for  the 
sake  of  the  future  ;  that  it  should  not  be  too  anxious  to 
serve  order,  lest  its  power  and  wealth  should  be  dis- 
turbed, whcnsoeA'er,  at  least,  it  sees  that  the  existing 
order  of  things  is  not  a  living  order  because  it  repre- 
sents the  best  thoughts  of  the  time,  but  only  a  negation 
of  disorder ;  that  it  should  not  be  afraid  of  what  are 
called  revolutionary  thoughts,  remembering  that  all  rev- 
elations have  given  birth  to  revolutions,  and  that  if  Re- 
ligion heads  a  revolution  it  becomes  a  reformation ;  and, 
finally,  that  it  shoidd  get  nearer  in  spirit  and  in  life  to 
him  Avho  was  the  intimate  friend  of  the  poor,  whom  the 
common  jieople  gladly  heard,  and  Avho  never  hesitated 
one  instant  to  proclaim  ideas  which  he  knew  would  over- 
throw the  existing  conditions  of  society. 

To  do  these  things  Avith  Avisdom,  foresight,  firmness, 
rememliering  that  he  who  believes  does  not  make  haste, 
but  believing  that  God  is  educating  all  men  to  perfec- 
tion, that  Christ  has  redeemed  all  men,  and  Avill  complete 
that  redemption,  that  the  Divine  Spirit  is  now  revealing 
more  and  more  of  Truth  to  the  world,  and  that  the 
world  is  groNviug  by  tliat  truth,  will  rescue  men  from 
scepticism;  and  many  years  will  not  pass  by  before  we 
know,  even  more  fully  than  noAv,  Avhat  Jesus  meant 
when  he  said,  "I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  unto  you, 
but  ye  cannot  bear  them  now." 


THE  LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL 
CRITICISM.* 

1871. 

"  Prove  .all  things  ;  hold  fast  that  which  is  good." — I.  Thess.  v.,  21. 

I  AM  going  to-d.ny  to  speak  of  the  jjoint  in  the  late 
Privy  Council  judgment  which  .affects  the  question  of 
tlie  liberty  of  Biblical  criticism  in  the  Church  of 
England. 

Some  years  ago,  in  the  judgment  i)ronounced  in  the 
case  of  the  Essays  .and  Reviews,  a  large  freedom  of  inter- 
pretation and  of  criticism  of  the  Bible  was  gr.anted,  or 
ajipeared  to  be  granted,  to  the  Cliurch.  That  freedom 
was  gratefully  accepted,  and  freely  used.  Tlie  results 
have  been  remarkable.  The  Bible,  a]i])roached  in  the 
same  manner  as  we  approach  any  other  book,  has  gained 
in  reality,  in  interest,  and  in  power.  Its  human  and 
its  sjiiritual  sides  have  both  been  brought  into  greater 
liromincnce.  Its  liter.ary  and  intellectual  interest  has 
been  more  widely  recognized.  It  has  become  not  less 
the  book  of  religious  circles,  but  more  the  book  of  Hu- 
manity. And  tliese  gains  have  been  in  proportion  to 
the  loss  of  those  mystical  and  infallible  qualities  which 
have  been  imputed  to  it  in  the  i^asi,  and  which  had 

•A  sermon  suggested  by  the  judgment  pronounced  in  the  case  of  Mr.  Voysey. 


LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM. 


149 


relegated  it  to  a  region  in  whicli  all  exercise  of  the 
reason  upon  it  was  pronounced  either  impious  or  dan- 
gerous. No  true  book  suffers  from  being  removed  out 
of  the  misty  valley  of  sujjerstition  and  placed  in  the 
mountain  air  of  honest  inquiry ;  and  the  Bible  is  not  less 
reverenced  or  loved  by  us,  but  more,  now  that  we  have 
subjected  it  for  some  years  to  the  ordinary  critical  tests. 
The  pixre  gold  of  tlie  book  shines  brighter,  and  is  recog- 
nized more  quickly,  now  that  we  try  to  separate  it  from 
the  alloy ;  and  the  alloy  itself  has  become  interesting  for 
its  historical  and  human  value.  Formerly,  when  both 
were  considered  equally  divine,  both  suffered  from  the 
confusion.  It  is  easy  to  see  what  follows  when  alloy  is 
maintained  to  be  gold,  and  gold  to  be  alloy. 

Well,  it  has  seemed  to  many,  both  witliin  and  without 
the  liberal  ranks,  that  the  late  judgment  takes  away 
from  us  this  freedom.  It  a2:)pears  to  them  to  say,  first, 
that  no  passage  in  the  Scriptures  may  be  subject  to  free 
criticism  which  relates  to  faith  or  morals;  secondly,  that 
no  laassage  may  be  so  interjireted  as  to  contradict  an- 
other ;  and,  thirdly,  that  no  individual  criticism  is  allow- 
able at  all,  and  that  this  last  restriction  is  in  fact  a 
death-blow  to  criticism  altogether. 

But  criticism  has  already  done  its  work ;  and  what  are 
its  sure  results? 

According  to  any  true  princij^le  of  interpretation,  the 
books  of  the  Bible  must  be  subjected  to  the  same  tests 
as  all  other  books.  Are  there  passages  which  belong  to 
the  sphere  of  physics  ?  Then  they  are  to  be  subjected 
to  precisely  the  same  strict  inquiry  as  any  physical 
hypothesis  is  subjected  to  by  a  natural  j^hilosopher ;  and, 
as  they  answer  the  inquiry,  they  are  to  be  accepted  as 
true  or  rejected  as  erroneous. 


160 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


Many  of  the  Biblical  statements  liave  not  stood  that 
test ;  and  at  once  Ave  come  to  the  conclusion  that,  wliat- 
ever  insj^iration  may  mean,  it  does  not  include  infallibil- 
ity on  these  points.  We  deny  that  the  writers  knew 
more  on  these  subjects  than  any  other  men  of  the  time 
at  which  they  wrote.  The  discovery  of  Galileo,  in  fact, 
settled  this  point. 

Unfortunately,  the  idea  of  a  BiV)lical  infallibility  still 
lingers  among  men,  and  the  spiritual  jjower  of  the  Bible 
is  still  involved  with  its  accuracy  on  jihysical  questions. 
Whether  the  question  be  one  of  geology,  or  a  new  the- 
ory of  species,  or  the  descent  and  age  of  man,  there  is 
still  a  battle  to  save  this  book  from  being  pronounced  in 
error,  a  series  of  reconciliations  are  still  jn'oposed. 

These  attem2)ted  reconciliations  only  serve  to  bring 
the  Bible  into  discredit,  partly  because,  as  science  goes 
on,  they  are  one  by  one  proA-ed  inadequate,  jiartly  be- 
cause they  contradict  and  disprove  one  another,  and 
Avholly  because  they  all  try  to  make  the  words  of  Scri]it- 
ure  mean  something  else  than  a  common-sense  interjsre- 
tation,  such  as  Ave  Avould  give  to  the  same  statements  in 
any  other  book,  avouIcI  lead  us  to  adopt.  They' seem  to 
me  waste  of  time  and  labor  in  supj>ort  of  a  Avrong  notion. 
I  do  not  say  that  it  is  a  matter  of  indifference  to  me 
Avhether  the  Bible  be  j^roved  in  accordance  Avith  modern 
science  or  not ;  for  I  should  feel,  if  it  were  in  accordance 
Avith  modern  science,  that  the  Avisdom  of  Inspiration 
might  be  fairly  challenged.  To  link  modern  knoAAdedge 
to  a  sjiiritual  revelation  given  to  men  Avho  had  no  mod- 
ern knoAAledge  would  have  injured  their  reception  of 
that  revelation.  If  Moses  had  told  the  people  of  Israel 
that  the  earth  Avent  round  the  sun  in  the  same  breath  as 


LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CEITICISM.  151 


ho  told  them  that  the  Lord  their  God  was  one  Lord,  the 
total  incredibility  witli  which  they  would  receive  the 
first  would  lead  them  to  be  as  incredulous  of  the  second. 
A  revelation  must  be  given  in  accordance  with  the 
knowledge  of  the  time,  or  it  will  be  rejected.  On  dis- 
tinct grounds,  its  truth  and  its  use  are  outside  of  the 
sphere  of  physical  truth. 

Under  this  head  comes,  of  course,  the  very  important 
question  of  miracles.  Miracles  seem  to  directly  contra- 
dict the  root  theories  of  science.  There  are  many  factors 
in  the  question,  which  have  to  be  discussed  in  any  thor- 
ough treatment  of  it :  whether  natural  sequence  really 
and  necessarily  is  invariable ;  whether  matter  really  ex- 
ists, or  is  essentially  nothing  but  force  ;  and  then  whether 
force  is  anything  but  will  or  thought ;  and  then  whether 
the  whole  universe  is  not  actually  the  will  or  thought  of 
God.  And,  should  the  latter  ever  admit  of  proof,  then 
the  miracle  would  certainly  seem  to  be  thinkable,  and 
therefore  less  improbable  than  the  existence  of  matter, 
which  most  people  accept,  but  which  is  jAilosophically 
unthinkable.  Be  our  theories  about  miracle,  however, 
what  they  may,  as  a  miracle  is  plainly  something  out  of 
the  ordinary  sequence  of  things,  any  alleged  miracle 
ought  to  be  most  severely  investigated ;  and,  if  any  other 
explanation  than  a  miraculous  one  is  fairly  allowable, 
that  explanation  ought  to  be  received.  I  claim  the  free- 
dom of  criticism,  therefore,  on  the  miraculous  element  in 
the  Bible,  because,  unless  the  question  be  discussed  with 
liberty,  we  shall  never  arrive  at  any  intellectual  certainty 
on  the  possibility,  for  instance,  of  a  miracle  like  the 
Resurrection. 

Passing  to  another  point,  we  claim  the  liberty  to  sub- 


152 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


mit  to  free  criticism  the  liistorical  portions  of  the  sacred 
Scriptures.  Tilings  necessary  to  salvation  we  believe, 
but  it  can  hardly  be  said  that  a  belief  in  the  infallible 
accuracy  of  the  whole  history  is  necessary  to  salvation. 
Moreover,  if  such  a  belief  is  demanded  of  us,  one  proved 
inaccuracy  is  fatal  to  the  whole;  and  it  is  almost  ridic- 
ulous to  bind  up  the  historical  reality  of  the  account  of 
the  Passion  of  Christ  with  the  historical  reality  of  the 
story  of  the  dispersion  at  Babel. 

Criticism  has  proved  that  there  are  discrepancies  in 
the  historical  books;  it  has  rendered  it  more  than  j^rob- 
able  that  the  more  archaic  narratives  in  Genesis  and  else- 
where are  of  little  historical  value ;  it  has  shown  that  the 
authors  of  many  of  the  books  were  not  contemjioraries  of 
the  events  narrated,  and  that  the  details  are  necessarily 
traditional,  and  share  in  the  uncertainty  of  traditions. 

Whatever  inspiration  means,  it  does  not  guarantee  his- 
torical infallibility;  and  the  history  of  the  Bible  is  open 
to  the  same  sort  of  criticism  as  that  which  we  bestow  on 
any  other  history. 

Such  criticism  —  once  we  ha^-e  laid  aside  the  theory  of 
infallilde  inspiration  —  has  not  in  its  results  done  any 
wrong  to  the  Bible,  but  the  contrary.  The  book  is  not 
less,  but  more,  reverenced  by  us,  now  that  it  makes  no 
longer  impossible  claims  on  oxir  belief.  The  critical  and 
careful  laying  aside  of  that  which  we  found  mistaken, 
temporary,  and  local  in  it,  has  brought  out  more  clearly 
than  before  that  which  is  divine,  spiritual,  and  perma- 
nent in  it.  And  the  historical  record,  freed  from  the 
superstitious  claims  made  for  it,  has  given  up  that  which 
is  true  in  it,  and  become  of  the  greatest  possible  interest 
and  value. 


LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM. 


153 


If  it  is  no  longer  lawful,  for  exampk',  to  say  that  Saint 
Paul  changed  his  ojjinion  on  some  points  as  he  grew 
older,  so  that  j^assages  in  his  later  Epistles  a2:)2)ear  to  be 
at  variance  with  passages  in  his  earlier  Epistles ;  if  we 
can  no  longer  point  out  the  differences  which  exist  be- 
tween the  first  three  and  the  fourth  Gospels,  differences 
which  I  myself  think  can  be  embraced  into  a  unity,  but 
which  apparently  exist ;  if  criticism  be  not  allowed  to 
play  freely  round  these  and  similar  points, —  then  we  are 
simply  put  back  to  the  time  when  men  forgot  the  spirit 
and  life  of  the  sacred  Scriptures  in  a  theory  of  their  in- 
fallibility, when  reason  was  sacrificed  to  a  superstitious 
idea  of  an  insjiiration  which  was  independent  of  the 
writer's  character  and  growth,  when  interjireters,  in- 
stead of  asking  what  the  writer  really  meant  when  he 
wrote,  set  themselves  to  force  the  expressions  of  the 
writer  into  what  they  wished  him  to  say. 

And,  as  to  discreisancies  and  contradictions,  if  it  is 
incumbent  on  us  to  say,  in  the  face  of  the  Scriptures 
themselves,  that  there  is  no  discrepancy  between,  for 
instance,  the  two  accounts  of  the  flood  in  Genesis,  or  no 
inconsistencies  in  the  narrative  of  the  Gospels,  or  nothing 
irreconcilable  in  the  genealogies  of  Christ ;  or  that  there 
are  no  contradictions  between  the  Books  of  Kings  and 
Chronicles;  if  we  are  forced  to  begin  again  the  old 
miserable,  useless  labor  of  harmonizing  and  reconciling 
accounts,  with  the  clear  knowledge  now,  not  only  that 
they  cannot  be  perfectly  liarmonized,  but  also  that,  if 
tliey  could,  it  Avould  be  fruitless  work, —  then  we  are  in- 
deed depraving  our  teaching  of  the  Bible  by  uniting  it 
to  falsehood  in  ourselves,  and  dej)raving  the  Bible  itself. 

The  whole  question  of  the  authorship  of  the  books 


154 


FAITH  AXD  FREEDOM. 


both  of  the  Old  and  Xew  Testaments  must  also  be  left 
open.  It  cannot  be  suppressed  by  any  pretence  that  it 
does  not  exist.  In  the  case  of  the  Old  Testament,  it  has 
been  already  far  and  wide  assumed  that  the  authorship 
of  the  books  is  an  open  question.  Xo  one  denies  that 
the  books  are  canonical,  but  Ave  have  felt  quite  free  to 
discuss  the  date  of  composition  of  the  several  books  of 
the  Pentateuch  and  the  various  ages  of  their  fragments; 
to  divide  Isaiah  as  we  have  it  between  the  jirophet  of 
that  name  and  another  writer  of  the  C'a])tivity  ;  to  trace 
insertions  from  earlier  times  m  Isaiah  and  the  various 
l^rophets ;  to  relegate  Ecclesiastes  to  a  much  later  date 
than  Solomon ;  to  freely  treat  the  authorshiji  of  all  the 
books  as  a  question  to  be  determined  by  historical  crit- 
icism. The  judgment  has  not  pronounced  against  this 
liberty  of  ours  Avith  regard  to  the  Old  Testament,  and 
we  noAV  claim  the  same  liberty  with  regard  to  the 
authorship  of  the  books  of  the  Xew  Testament. 

The  notion  that  their  authority  as  a  rule  of  faith  de- 
pends entirely  on  their  authenticity  arises  out  of  the 
theory  of  a  special  inspiration  differing  in  kind  from  that 
given  to  other  good  and  holy  men,  a  notion  wholly,  I 
think,  unsupported  by  the  Scriptures  themselves.  That 
the  writers  were  insjjired  by  God,  I  believe  to  be  true ; 
that  holy  men  of  old  Avrote  as  they  were  moved  by  the 
Holy  Spirit,  I  believe  to  be  true  :  but  were  only  those 
inspired  whose  names  are  handed  down  to  us,  does  God 
inspire  no  one  now,  do  no  men  speak  now  moved  by  the 
Holy  Ghost?  Many  do  so,  for  God  has  not  ceased  to 
act  on  men. 

The  next  and  last  thing  I  shall  discuss  is  the  inference 
which  some  have  draAvn  from  the  judgment  that  we  are 


LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM. 


155 


not  permitted  to  explain  any  passage  having  reference  to 
faith  or  morals  in  a  sense  at  variance  with  any  other. 
But  Ave  need  not  trouble  ourselves  about  inferences.  A 
judgment  such  as  this  speaks  only,  of  course,  of  that 
which  lies  before  it.  Nor,  indeed,  could  the  judgment 
intend  that  such  an  inference  should  Ije  drawn  Ijy  any 
one.  If  it  meant  its  Avords  to  liave  full  value  on  this 
point,  they  Avould  directly  take  away  the  power  of  stat- 
ing views  about  the  Scriptures  which  the  Scriptures 
themselves  encourage  us  to  state. 

Take,  first,  questions  of  faitli.  The  doctrine  of  Im- 
mortality is  a  question  of  faith.  We  hear  nothing  of 
immortality  in  the  earlier  books  of  the  Old  Testament. 
There  are  e-\  en  passages  which  apparently  deny  it  along 
Avith  others  Avhich  apparently  assert  it.  It  Avould  be 
difBcult,  for  example,  to  say  that  this  passage  in  Heze- 
kiah's  jirayer,  "The  grave  cannot  praise  thee,  death 
cannot  celebrate  thee,  they  that  go  down  into  the  pit 
cannot  hope  for  thy  truth,"  is  not  somewhat  at  variance 
Avith  "  I  liave  a  desire  to  depart  and  to  be  Avith  Christ, 
Avhich  is  far  better." 

The  doctrine  of  a  Sacrifice  for  Sins  is  a  matter  of 
faith,  but  the  mode  in  which  the  Old  Testament  con- 
ceived it  during  the  Mosaic  dispensation  is  expressly 
said  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Hebrews  to  be  rej^laced  by 
another,  "He  takcth  away  the  first  that  he  may  establish 
the  second."  And  Avhen  a  covenant  is  expressly  declared 
to  be  made  old,  as  it  is  in  this  Epistle,  to  be  decayed  and 
ready  to  vanish  away  before  a  iicav  one,  it  can  scarcely 
be  denied  that  there  are  some  things  in  the  old  Avith 
which  the  ncAV  may  be  at  A'ariance. 

The  doctrine  declared  in  the  second  commandment 


166 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


that  the  sins  of  the  fathers  shall  be  visited  on  the  chil- 
dren was  a  matter  of  faith  to  those  to  whom  it  was 
given.  But  the  prophet  Ezekiel,  having  reached  a 
higher  spiritual  level,  directly  contradicts  it ;  and  it  is 
said  that  the  whole  chapter  (the  eighteenth)  was  so 
startling  to  the  Masters  of  the  Synagogue,  as  seeming  to 
contradict  the  Pentateuch,  that  they  hesitated  to  include 
Ezekiel  in  the  canon.  "The  fathers  have  eaten  sour 
grapes,  and  the  children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge."  "As 
I  live,  saith  the  Lord  God,  there  shall  be  no  more  this 
jjroverb  in  the  house  of  Israel."  "The  son  shall  not 
bear  the  iniquity  of  the  father,  neither  shall  the  father 
bear  the  iniquity  of  the  son  ;  the  righteousness  of  the 
righteous  shall  be  upon  him,  and  the  wickedness  of  the 
wicked  shall  be  upon  him."  In  fact,  the  chapter  itself, 
as  a  whole ;  and  the  history  of  the  dismay  of  the  Rabbis 
at  its  repugnancy  to  another  part  of  sacred  Scripture  is 
a  death-blow  to  such  a  statement  as  some  suppose  they 
ought  to  infer  from  the  judgment. 

We  claim  then,  on  the  ground  of  the  sacred  Scriptures 
themselves,  liberty  to  contrast  passages  in  them  which 
pertain  to  matters  of  faith  with  other  passages,  and  to 
say  that  they  may  be  at  variance  with  one  another ;  and 
that  this  is,  on  the  supposition  of  a  jirogressive  revela- 
tion, necessarily  so. 

Again,  with  regard  to  matters  of  morals.  The  rela- 
tions of  wife  to  husband  are  a  matter  of  morality. 
Christ  himself  reverses  the  Mosaic  conception,  and  re- 
places it  by  the  ideal  one.  "  And  they  said,  Moses  suf- 
fered to  write  a  bill  of  divorcement  and  to  put  her  away. 
And  Jesus  answered,  For  the  hardness  of  your  heart  he 
wrote  you  this  precept."    And  then  he  reverses  the 


LIBEBTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM. 


157 


precept  in  "a  counsel  of  perfection,"  ending  with  this 
phrase,  "  What  therefore  God  hath  joined  together,  let 
no  man  put  asunder." 

It  "was  lawful  under  the  Mosaic  law  to  claim  an  eye 
for  an  eye  and  a  tooth  for  a  tooth,  and  orders  are  said  to 
be  given  by  God  to  the  Israelites  "  not  to  seek  the  peace 
or  the  good  of  their  enemies,  tlie  Moabites,  forever. 
Christ  reverses  both  these  when  he  says,  "Love  your 
enemies,  bless  them  which  curse  you,  do  good  to  them 
that  hate  you,"  in  another  counsel  of  perfection. 

The  keeping  of  the  Sabbath  is  considered  jiart  of  the 
moral  law.  The  mode  of  keeping  it  enjoined  in  the 
Pentateuch  is  put  aside  even  in  the  Prophets,  is  de- 
cidedly 2)ut  aside  in  the  Gospels,  is  still  more  decidedly 
put  aside  in  the  Epistles.  "Ye  observe  days  and  months 
and  times  and  years,"  said  Saint  Paul.  "  I  am  afraid  of 
you,  lest  I  have  bestowed  on  you  labor  in  vain."  That 
is  a  passage  which  can  hardly  be  said  not  to  be  at  vari- 
ance with  a  hundred  j^assages  in  the  Old  Testament. 

We  claim,  then,  the  right  which  the  Scrij^tures  them- 
selves give  us  to  interpret  passages  which  relate  to  moral 
action  in  a  manner  repugnant  to  others,  Avhen  those 
others  are  plainly  at  variance  with  the  highest  morality 
taught  us  in  the  Bible,  We  say  that  we  must  expect 
this  variance;  for  Christ  has  taught  us,  and  the  Epistles 
in  various  passages  carry  out  this  teaching,  that  the  rev- 
elation given  in  tlie  Bible  is  a  j^rogressive  revelation. 

XoAV,  a  progressive  revelation  assumes  that  the  revela- 
tion given  is  proportioned  to  the  moral  sense  of  those 
who  receive  it.  As  much  and  no  more  than  they  can 
aspire  to  is  given.  To  give  the  morality  of  the  Gospels 
to  the  savage  and  ignorant  Jews  of  the  desert  would 


158 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


have  been  absurd.  It  would  have  been  like  giving  to 
a  boy  who  has  just  mastered  the  first  book  of  Euclid 
the  Principia  of  Newton  as  his  next  study.  To  ask  of 
Joshua's  army  that  it  should  do  good  to  its  enemies 
would  have  been  as  much  oiit  of  the  question. 

The  morality  taught  in  the  Pentateuch  is  the  morality 
(  f  a  primer :  the  morality  of  the  earlier  Psalms  is  higher, 
the  morality  of  the  Projjhets  is  higher  still.  As  the 
nation  advanced  through  the  revelation  given, —  the  rev- 
elation being  always  somewhat  in  advance  of  the  natural 
morality, —  new  revelations,  higher  and  higher  still,  each 
containing  the  germs  of  that  Avhich  was  to  follow  it, 
grew  up  in  the  minds  of  the  best  men,  under  the  work 
of  God's  Spirit,  and  Avere  given  through  them  to  the 
people ;  and  the  conclusion  is  that  we  must  not  demand 
more  from  the  nation  or  the  writings  than  the  time 
allows  us,  we  must  not  ask  the  morality  of  Isaiah  from 
Samuel,  nor  the  morality  of  Saint  John  from  Isaiah. 
We  must  expect  to  find  many  things  in  the  earlier  books 
of  the  Old  Testament  at  variance  Avith  the  morality  of 
the  Proj^hets,  still  more  at  variance  Avith  the  morality  of 
the  Gospels.  We  haA'e  an  actual  right,  then,  from  our 
Christian  point  of  a'Icav,  to  say  that  many  things  attrib- 
uted to  God  in  the  Old  Testament,  such  as  the  com- 
mands to  utterly  annihilate  the  Canaanites,  are  Avrongly 
attributed  to  God,  and  that  many  things  called  good,  as 
when  Jael  is  blessed  for  the  slaughter  of  Sisera,  and 
others,  are  the  product  of  the  imperfect  morality  of  the 
time,  though  we  must  also  remember,  first,  hoAV  divine 
the  morality  is  Avliich  is  mixed  up  Avith  these  things,  hoAV 
far  beyond  anything  Ave  jiossess  in  books  of  contemporary 
or  eA'en  of  later  age  are  the  leading  truths  of  reA'elation 


LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CBITICISM. 


159 


in  the  sereral  Old  Testament  books;  and,  secondly,  tliat 
these  things  in  which  we  see  a  morality  at  variance  with 
that  of  the  Gospels  were  not  unnatural  nor  horrible  at 
the  time,  and  that,  if  we  had  lived  ourselves  at  the  time, 
our  conscience  would  not  have  been  violated  by  them  at 
all.  Nay,  it  would  be  quite  possible  for  some  of  us  in  a 
moment  of  passionate  patriotism  to  sing  as  Deborah  did, 
and  to  break  into  jiraise  of  one  who  should  assassinate 
a  tyrant  as  doing  the  work  of  God,  as  some  did  here 
when  Orsini  made  his  attempt.  Nor  have  we  quite  for- 
gotten how  not  very  long  ago  we  claimed  our  merciless 
slaughter  of  the  Hindoos,  in  which  whole  villages  of 
innocent  jiersons  suffered,  as  the  vengeance  of  God 
himself. 

On  the  ground,  then,  that  the  revelation  given  in  the 
Bible  is  a  progressive  one  with  regard  to  faith  and 
morals,  passing  from  less  jjerfect  to  more  perfect,  and  on 
the  authority  of  the  Bible  itself,  Ave  claim  the  right  to  a 
free  criticism  of  j^assages  relating  to  faitli  and  morals, 
taking  in  this  case  as  our  standard  the  ideal  of  faith  and 
morality  given  in  the  accepted  teaching  of  Christ.  We 
claim  the  right  to  say  that  it  is,  in  itself,  a  depraving  of 
Scripture  and  a  denial  of  its  whole  idea  of  the  j^rogres- 
sive  disclosure  of  more  and  more  perfect  things  to  take 
without  any  modification  many  of  the  statements  of  the 
Old  Test.ament  as  binding  now  on  faith  and  morals,  or 
to  understand  many  passages  as  not  at  variance  with  the 
faith  and  morals  revealed  to  us  in  the  received  teaching 
of  Christ. 

It  may  be  thought  that  the  whole  of  this  statement 
contradicts  the  seventh  Article,  in  which  it  is  said  that 
the  Old  Testament  is  not  contrary  to  the  New.    It  is 


160 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


not  so  :  the  Avhole  argument  is  based  on  that  continuity 
of  a  progressive  revelation  which  asserts  that  the  rev- 
elation in  the  Old  Testament  contained  the  germs  out  of 
which  developed,  century  after  century,  the  revelation 
in  the  Xew.  The  Xew  Testament  fulfils,  explains,  and 
com^jletes  the  Old.  One  s|)irit,  one  set  of  truths,  run 
through  both.  But  that  by  no  means  imjilies  tliat  every- 
thing in  the  one  is  in  strict  accordance,  on  sul)jects  of 
faith  and  morals,  with  everything  in  the  other,  or  that 
everything  in  the  books  of  each,  on  such  subjects,  is  in 
accordance.  On  the  contrary,  it  implies  that  such  ac- 
cordance cannot  be.  The  tree,  at  each  stage  of  its 
growth,  differs  from  the  sapling,  though  the  same  life 
and  the  same  idea  runs  through  all  its  stages,  though 
every  stage  of  its  growth  supposes  the  next. 

You  may  say.  How  am  I  in  this  difficulty  to  judge  as 
to  what  is  permanent  or  not,  divine  or  not,  necessary  to 
sah"ation  or  not  in  the  Bible?  All  authority  is  taken 
away  from  me.  Xot  quite  :  there  is  the  moral  consensus 
of  the  time  in  which  you  live,  a  consensus  which  has 
been  developed  by  the  slow  action  of  Christianity  upon 
the  world,  and  which  is,  in  itself,  I  V)elieve,  the  work  of 
the  divine  spirit  of  God  on  humanity.  Any  plain  con- 
tradiction of  that  consensus,  whether  in  faith  or  morals, 
in  the  Bible,  cannot  be  in  it  of  divine  or  ])ermanent 
valv;e.  We  are  bound  to  reject  it  as  part  of  the  rule 
of  faith,  unless  we  deny  that  our  present  standard  of 
morality  is  the  Avork  of  God,  a  denial  which  would  be 
practical  atheism. 

Ultimately,  in  our  jjersonal  life,  the  appeal  for  author- 
ity is  made  to  the  spirit  of  God  in  us,  who  verifies  for  us 
his  own  work.    But  he  verifies  it  in  no  preternatural 


LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM.  161 


manner,  Itiit  tlirough  the  means  of  spiritual  organs, 
which  he  assists  in  their  work.  ^VTiat  are  these  "  ver- 
ifying facnhies,"  to  adopt  a  term  from  a  well-known 
writer  ?  Here  are  some  of  them  :  "  He  that  loveth 
knoweth  God."  "  If  any  man  will  do  his  will,  he  shall 
know  of  the  doctrine."  "  "Whosoever  shall  not  receive 
the  kingdom  of  God  as  a  little  child  shall  in  no  wise 
enter  therein."  "  Blessed  are  tlie  pure  in  heart,  for  they 
shall  see  God."  "  He  that  is  of  the  truth  heareth  my 
voice." 

These  are  the  faculties  wherel)y  we  discern  the  things 
of  the  spirit  of  God  in  the  Bible, —  a  loving  and  a  pure 
heart ;  obedience  to  the  known  will  of  God  ;  tlie  childlike 
spirit ;  the  being  of  the  truth  :  to  these,  the  Bible  is  an 
open  book ;  and  he  who  jjossesses  them,  and  in  whom 
God's  spirit  is  developing  them  day  by  day,  needs  no 
outward  authority.  Of  his  own  self,  he  determines  what 
is  necessary  or  not  necessary  to  believe  in  the  Scriptures. 

A  good  deal  has  been  said  about  the  evils  of  destruc- 
tive criticism.  I  do  not  like  criticism  the  aim  of  which 
is  destruction,  not  truth.  But  its  evils  are  those  which 
time  most  surely  cures,  and  truth  is  not  destroyed.  De- 
structive criticism,  when  it  becomes  licentious,  cuts  its 
own  throat ;  and  it  is  better  to  let  it  arrive  at  this  conclu- 
sion. If  you  Avish  to  keep  its  evils  alive,  the  best  way  to 
do  that  is  to  persecute  it.  If  you  wish  it  to  produce 
good  results  by  a  kind  of  reflex  action,  let  it  have  its 
course, —  w.atch  it,  seize  the  hints  it  gives  you,  let  it  tell 
you  what  is  really  dead  in  the  things  it  criticises,  and 
build  up  for  yourselves  a  firm  edifice  of  true  things  by 
constructive  criticism. 

Destructive  criticism  has  its  evils,  but  none  so  great  as 


162 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


the  evils  'wliich  follow  on  forbidding  criticism  altogether. 
To  I5ut  the  clergy  back  into  a  230sition  where  they  wiU 
have  to  continually  twist  their  intellect  awry  and  to 
violate  the  morality  of  common-sense  and  to  suppress 
the  trutli,  in  order  to  appear  to  get  over  Biblical  difficul- 
ties, is  to  encourage  a  sort  of  criticism  which,  far  more 
rapidly  than  any  infidel  criticism,  will  destroy  with  the 
laity  not  only  any  resj)ect  for  the  clergy, —  and  that  is 
not  unimjjortant,  —  but  any  reverence  for  the  book 
which  the  clergy  are  asked  to  maltreat  in  the  name  of 
Truth. 

The  time  has  come  wlien  silence  on  the  known  results 
of  criticism  or  on  unfinished  critical  inquiries  is  no  longer 
right  or  prudent.  Even  if  we  would,  w'e  cannot  now 
leave  to  men  and  women  their  old  opinions.  The  matter 
is  taken  out  of  our  hands.  The  questions  which  crit- 
icism debates  are  debated  in  every  Avorkshop,  in  every 
drawing-room.  And  are  the  clergy  the  only  j)ersons  on 
whom  silence  is  to  be  im])Osed, — we,  who  ought  to  be 
beforehand  and  not  behindhand  in  such  discussion  on 
things  dear  to  us  ?  Wlien  aU  the  world  is  inquiring,  is 
the  pulpit  to  be  the  only  jjlace  where  inquiry  is  for- 
bidden ?  Are  we,  j^art  of  Avhose  business  is  Biblical 
interpretation,  to  ignore  all  the  efforts  of  tlie  laity  to 
i;nderstand  tlie  Bible?  When  a  Christian  ministry  iags 
behind  the  knowledge  of  the  time,  it  must  soon  come  to 
an  end;  and  its  end  will  be  swifter,  hastened  by  a  just 
contempt,  if  it  is  believed  to  know  truth  and  to  suppress 
it,  if  it  is  open  to  the  charge  of  loving  truth  less  than  its 
opinions.  It  would  be,  indeed,  a  deadly  blow  to  the 
Church  of  England  if  this  judgment  meant,  as  some 
think  it  means,  that  all  searchers  for  truth  have  no 
business  within  its  pale. 


LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM.  163 


I  cannot  think  tliat  tlie  judgment  means  this,  and  we 
wait  to  know  clearly  what  it  does  mean.  But  meantime 
we  cannot  be  silent. 

We  call  upon  all,  ministers  and  people,  to  inquire 
after  truth,  and  to  hold  it  as  the  first  of  virtues  without 
which  all  other  virtues  become  corru2)t.  We  have  no 
sjTnpathy  Avith  its  intemperate  pursuit,  nor  with  the 
notion  that  overthrowing  everything  is  the  way  to  find 
it.  It  ought  to  be  pursued  by  a  slow,  sober,  just, 
jjatient  effort,  based  upon  the  jirinciple  that  in  all  error 
there  is  a  grain  of  truth  liidden  by  which  the  error  lives, 
the  loss  of  which  grain,  by  our  heady  violence,  will 
vitiate  our  conclusion.  We  shall  not  be  afraid  of  fac- 
ing criticism  on  the  Scriptures  ;  but  we  should  subject 
criticism  itself  to  critical  tests,  and  weigh  its  conclusions 
well.  Nothing  is  easier  than  destructive  criticism,  and 
nothing  is  more  intellectually  contemptible  than  the 
hasty  acceirtance  of  its  inferences  by  persons  whose 
delight  is  to  contradict  received  opinions.  Tlie  sudden 
determination  of  questions  which  have  employed  the 
intellect  of  centuries  by  men  who  have  a  constitutional 
infirmity  of  seeing  only  one  side  of  a  thing  is  an  inso- 
lence done  to  the  love  of  truth.  A  sIoav  sobriety  in 
balancing  the  results  of  criticism,  and  in  judgment,  is 
one  of  our  greatest  wants.  There  is  no  need  of  hm-ry. 
We  have  an  eternity  before  iis  in  which  to  arrive  at 
truth  ;  but,  because  we  have  eternity  before  us,  we  must 
not  neglect  the  endeavor  to  discover  truth  :  for  such 
neerlect  Avill  have  its  results  in  the  enfeeblinof  of  the 
organs  by  which  truth  is  found  ;  and  neither  in  this 
world  nor  in  the  next  is  knowledge  given  to  feebleness. 
The  Bible  will  not  lose,  but  gain,  from  the  process  de- 


164  FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 

voutly  l)ut  sternly  perfonned.  Its  truths,  as  they 
appear,  freed  from  the  mist  of  human  error,  will  he  all 
the  more  dear  to  us  because  they  have  been  told  to  us 
by  men  who  shared  in  our  common  humanity.  It  will 
no  longer  be  set  xip  as  the  ojiponent  of  reason,  but  as  in 
harmony  with  it ;  and,  the  intellect  satisfied,  will  leave 
free  room  to  the  spirit  to  receive  its  wise  and  tender 
lessons.  It  will  speak  to  the  heart  in  the  heart's  own 
language.  Its  human  lives,  and  the  history  of  their 
guidance  by  God,  will  tell  us  that  we  are  also  guided 
and  cared  for  liy  him.  The  j^rinciples  of  its  profound 
national  morality,  as  declared  by  the  Prophets,  will  pass 
into  our  national  life.  Its  psalms  and  prayers  will  ex- 
jjress  for  us  the  Avants  and  sorrow  and  joy  of  our  souls, 
and  deepen,  by  expression,  our  religious  life.  Its  his- 
tory of  the  continuity  of  religious  life  will  unite  us  to 
the  whole  past  of  humanity,  and,  while  it  makes  us  at 
one  with  Abraham  and  David  and  Isaiah,  teach  us  to  be 
at  one  with  Socrates  and  Aurelius  and  Confucius.  And 
its  centi'al  figure  Christ,  where  all  these  things  meet  and 
mingle  into  sinless  unity, —  where  the  Fatherhood  of 
God  and  the  Sonhood  of  Humanity  reveal  themselves; 
where  all  that  is  divine  is  made  himian,  and  all  that  is 
truly  human  is  exalted  to  the  divine ;  where  the  past 
revelation  fulfilled  its  imperfections,  and  in  whom  the 
future  revelation  is  contained  in  germ, —  in  whom  Love 
and  Truth  and  Purity  met  together  to  give  us  a  per- 
sonal revelation  of  the  character  of  God,  will  have  his 
redeeming,  consoling,  and  exalting  power  on  our  souls. 

But  any  attempt  to  maintain  o2iinions  al)out  the  Bible 
Avhich  science  is  every  day  jiroving  more  and  more  to  be 
erroneous  and  absurd,  and  any  attempt  to  check  inquiry, 


LIBERTY  OF  BIBLICAL  CRITICISM.  165 


can  only  bring  down  manifold  disasters  upon  the  Church. 
The  stream  of  freed  Biblical  criticism  once  let  loose 
cannot  now  be  dammed  up  without  danger.  Its  waters 
will  collect  behind  the  dam,  and  the  feeble  barrier  will 
give  way.  But,  in  the  rush  of  the  conglomerated  waters, 
not  only  the  barrier,  but  the  very  foundations  of  the 
present  <;onstitution  of  the  Church,  may  be  swept  away. 


THE  ATOI^EMEISTT. 


1871. 

"  Lord,  liow  are  tliey  increased  tliat  trouble  me  1  Many  are  they 
that  rise  up  against  me.  Many  there  be  wliich  say  of  my  soul,  There 
is  no  help  for  him  in  God.  But  thou,  0  Lord,  art  a  shield  for  me ; 
my  glory,  and  the  lifter  up  of  mine  liead.  I  cried  unto  the  Lord  with 
my  voice,  and  he  heard  me  out  of  his  holy  hill." — P.sai,m  iii.,  1,  2,  3,  4. 

This  is  a  laorning  psalm,  as  tlie  fourth,  wliicli  follows 
it,  is  an  evening  psalm.  There  is  a  high  probability 
that  the  tradition  which  refer.s  them  both  to  the  time 
when  David  fled  from  Absalom's  advance  to  Mahanaim 
is  a  true  tradition.  The  third  psalm  would  then  belong 
to  the  first  morning  after  that  on  which  David  left 
Jerusalem,  and  the  fourth  to  the  e\'ening  folloAving. 

David  left  Jerusalem  early  in  the  morning.  He  passed 
through  the  outskirts,  over  the  brook  Kidron,  and  took 
the  ascent  of  Olivet,  amid  the  loud  Availing  of  the  j^eojile 
of  the  city.  He  reached  the  mountain-top  at  noon : 
there  he  met  Hushai,  and  sent  him  back  to  confound  the 
counsel  of  Ahitoj^hel.  As  lie  descended  the  rugged  path 
on  the  other  side,  there  rained  upon  his  head  the  stones 
and  curses  of  Shimei,  adding  their  store  of  sorrow  to 
that  which  was  too  much.  It  Avas  not  till  evening  fell 
that  he  reached  the  ford  of  Jordan. 

There  he  snatched  a  short  slumber,  while  he  waited 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


167 


for  the  news  of  Iidw  tilings  were  going  in  Jerusalem. 
"I  laid  me  down,  and  slejjt."  At  midniglit,  he  was 
roused  with  the  message,  "All  is  safe  for  a  time;  the 
pursuit  is  delayed ;  get  over  the  river  at  once  to  Maha- 
naim."  David  sprang  to  his  feet,  his  old  energy  return- 
ing. "  I  rose  11])  again,  for  the  Lord  sustained  me " ; 
and  at  break  of  day  they  had  all  reached  the  other  side 
in  safety. 

Then,  as  the  sun  rose,  making  into  a  blaze  of  glory  all 
the  dew-drenched  western  bank, — seeming  like  God's 
summons  to  activity,  — David's  impulsive  poet-heart 
began  to  thrill  with  gratitude  and  courage,  and  this 
psalm  rushed  in  a  moment  to  his  lips. 

If  this  be  true,  a  vivid  interest  draws  us  to  the  psalm. 
It  is  the  unpremeditated  expression  of  the  passionate 
feeling  of  a  great  man's  heart  at  a  great  crisis  in  liis  life. 
We  seem  to  look  for  a  moment  into  his  inmost  heart. 

It  is  in  times  like  these  that  we  see  character.  Men 
are  true  when  passion  is  profound.  The  first  agony  of 
sorrow  wears  no  mask.  Anger,  at  its  fiercest,  lays  the 
secrets  of  the  heail  bare.  Fear  is  a  magic  glass,  through 
which  we  see  the  long-hidden  evil  or  weakness  of  the 
soul.    Joy  at  deliverance  has  the  same  j'ower. 

This  is  still  more  true  when  the  character  is  impulsive, 
and  the  impulsiveness  is  under  the  power  of  a  strong 
will.  Such  a  character  had  David, —  imjiulsive,  always 
ready  t<)  gratify  or  ex])ress  the  feelings  of  the  moment,  « 
but  cajtable  now  and  then  of  holding  them  in  with  the 
steadiest  curl^.  A\'lien  the  curb  was  withdrawn  by  the 
will,  then,  only  observe  how  most  of  his  psalms  burst  out 
with  a  cry,  like  the  leaj)  forward  of  a  beautiful  wild  ani- 
mal held  in  bonds  too  long. 


168 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


And  David's  passion  and  David's  impulsiveness,  now 
at  their  height,  swelled  by  the  rejjression  of  twenty-four 
hours, — swelled  by  an  awful  sorrow,  swelled  by  a  terrible 
anger, — were  suddenly  let  loose  by  the  sense  of  safety. 
He  looked  round  upon  his  folloM'ers,  and  rejoiced;  he 
felt  the  exhilaration  of  the  naorning;  he  saw  the  sun  rise, 
like  hope,  after  a  night  of  storms.  Silence  seemed 
shameful  in  that  moment,  and  tlie  i)salm  arose  into  life. 

How  the  words  came  rushing  like  waters.  "Jeho- 
vah!"— mark  the  cry  at  the  beginning, — "how  many 
are  become  niy  oppressors;  many  are  they  that  rise 
against  me.  Many  say  of  my  soul.  No  help  has  he  in 
God." 

But  yesterday  a  king,  and  now  an  exile.  Only  yester- 
day in  his  own  city,  the  j^eople  weeping  for  love  and 
sorrow  round  him!  What  were  they  doing  now?  And 
David  heard,  in  the  ear  of  his  imagination,  the  shouts 
which  welcomed  Absalom,  the  darling  of  the  j^eojale: 
"The  king  is  dead.  Long  live  the  king!"  fancied  the 
sneer  and  scoff  which  circulated  among  the  rebel  offi- 
cers; caught  the  sleek  murmur  of  Ahitophel's  insidious, 
hateful  voice;  and  saw  Avith  startling  distinctness  among 
the  crowd  the  face  of  Shimei  sharpened  with  hate.  He 
realized  the  thought  which  gleamed  in  every  eye  and 
hung  on  every  lip.  "They  say  of  my  soul,"  he  cried, 
"there  is  no  helj)  for  huu  in  God !  " 

Svich  is  the  judgment  of  the  world.  JItsfortune  means 
GocVs  anger.  Is  that  judgment  true?  That  is  the  first 
question  the  psalm  suggests. 

We  answer,  first,  that  God  is  never  angry  in  our  sense 
of  the  Avord.  Sacred  indignation  at  evil  is  inseparable 
from  his  being,  because  it  is  the  natural  repulsion  of 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


169 


lioliiiess  from  sin  ;  but  from  tliis  we  must,  so  far  as  we 
can  in  thouglit,  remove  all  suspicion  of  angry  passion. 
It  is  all  but  impossible  for  us  to  do  this,  for  it  is  so 
rarely  in  our  lives  that  we  feel  unmixed  indignation. 
Jealousy  steps  in  ;  sometimes  fear,  sometimes  a  wish  to 
display,  sometimes  wounded  vanity,  sometimes  selfish 
motives,  till  at  last,  or  in  a  moment,  indignation  is  de- 
graded into  violence,  and  violent  passion  brings  about 
revenge. 

It  is  owing  to  this  almost  necessary  inability  to  con- 
ceive pure  indignation  that  the  idea  of  God's  wrathful 
anger  has  taken  such  lodgement  in  the  heart  of  men. 
Few  superstitions  —  I  call  it  such,  for  it  is  born  of  igno- 
rance and  fear  —  have  cxev  done  more  harm  in  the 
world.  It  lay  at  the  root  of  the  jjojjular  cry  Mhich 
forced  persecution  on  the  Roman  governors ;  the  gods 
Avere  jealous  of  their  honor.  It  has  lain  at  the  root  of 
all  persecutions :  of  the  cruelties  of  the  inquisitors,  who 
attributed  to  God  the  desire  to  revenge  himself  upon 
the  Jews,  and  the  nursing  of  endless  rancor  against 
heretics ;  of  the  persecution  of  those  sects  who  repre- 
sented God  as  vindictive,  vain,  and  touchy.  It  has  lain 
at  the  root  of  the  i^erishing  doctrine  of  eternal  jiunish- 
ment. 

It  is  the  sujicrstition  which  the  Church  of  Christ  ought 
above  all  to  cast  out  now.  It  is  the  thing  above  all  else 
on  which  we  Avant  clear  notions. 

IIow  shall  I  best  explain  it,  illustrate  it  ?  What  is 
God's  indignation  ?  It  is  love  doing  justice.  Supj^ose 
that  you  saw  in  the  streets  a  brutalized  man  beating 
a  woman  :  your  feeling  would  be  indignation,  you  would 
inflict  punishment ;  but  there  would  be,  for  the  most 


170 


FAITH  AKD  FREEDOM. 


jjart,  feelings  of  contemijt,  of  violent  anger,  of  horror, 
combined  with  your  indignation.  In  vindicating  the 
woman's  cause,  there  would  be  no  pity  for  the  man. 
That  is  anger  doing  justice.  But  the  indignation  of 
God  would  jjunish  as  severely  as  you,  more  severely  in 
the  end  ;  but  there  would  be  no  anger  in  the  sense  of 
passion  ;  and  there  would  be  infinite  \nty,  compassion, 
and  love  for  the  man,  more  so  than  even  for  the  woman. 
"So  lost,  so  brutalized,  so  fallen, —  my  son,  I  must  redeem 
him."  This  is  love  doing  justice :  this  is  the  indignation 
of  God.  The  offender  is  punished,  the  sin  is  abhorred, 
but  the  offender  is  not  detested  :  the  tie  of  Fatherhood 
is  not  dissolved,  the  necessity  of  saving  the  lost  is  not 
forgotten.  "  You  have  done  this  wrong,"  God  says  to 
you  and  me:  "you  must  suffer  for  it.  I  am  a  consuming 
fire  to  your  evil.  But  I  do  not  love  you  less  :  my  love 
is  shown  in  insisting  on  the  2>unishment.  For  the  pain 
points  to  the  disease,  and  says  to  you,  '  Get  rid  of  the 
evil  thing,  or  you  die.'  " 

Moreover,  anger  like  ours  is  capricious,  easily  roused, 
easily  lost ;  punishes  too  much  or  too  little  ;  does  not  fit 
the  punishment  to  the  guilt,  so  that  it  may  seem  natural 
to  the  giiilty  and  touch  the  conscience,  but  takes  what- 
ever jninishment  lies  next  to  hand.  Want  of  justice, 
want  of  balancing  all  the  motives  and  circumstances  on 
both  sides,  want  of  natural  fitness,  characterize  the  inflic- 
tions of  our  anger  ;  for  it  has  no  time  for  all  this  slow 
woi'k,  and  no  thoughtfulness.  Let  it  wait  to  work  or 
think,  and  it  ebbs  away  like  Esau's,  or  quickens  into 
revengefulness  like  Saul's. 

There  is  an  absolute  freedom  from  all  these  faults  in 
the  indignation  of  God,  and  it  is  this  which  gives  it  its 


THK  ATONEMENT. 


171 


;nvfulness.  It  is  based  on  law,  or,  I  should  say,  on  the 
eternal  truthfulness  of  God  to  himself.  If  God  ceased 
to  punish  ■\vrong-doing,  he  would  cease  to  be  God ;  if  he 
did  not  apportion  the  exact  measure  of  punishment  to 
the  wrong,  making  it  the  natural  result,  and  felt  as  such, 
of  the  sin ;  if  he  did  not  see  the  wrong  in  all  its  excuses 
and  all  its  aggra^'ations,  and  make  botli  tell,  and  be  felt 
as  telling,  in  the  punishment,  he  could  not  be  the  just 
Omniscient  Being  we  conceive  him  to  be.  If  he  acted 
hastily,  and  Avithout  full  thought  of  the  results  of  the 
punishment  upon  the  character  of  the  person  punished, 
could  not  believe  in  his  love. 
It  is  not,  remember,  that  indignation  is  modified  by 
love,  or  love  modified  by  justice  :  there  are  no  argumen- 
tative elements  in  God's  nature,  things  whicli  plead  and 
reply,  and  replead  and  re-rej^ly  within  him.  If  we  had 
more  reverence  for  God's  iinity,  we  should  be  more  in- 
dignant at  representations  of  him  which  make  his  heart 
like  a  court  of  law,  in  which  his  attributes  are  advocates 
for  and  against  the  criminal.  His  love  is  his  justice,  his 
justice  is  his  love,  his  mercy  is  both  love  and  justice,  and 
his  indignation  is  the  inevitable  expression  (according  to 
tlie  unalterable  nature  of  his  being)  of  his  character  in 
contact  with  sin  in  the  persons  of  his  children.  It  is 
punishment ;  but  it  must  be  merciful  as  well  as  just  pun- 
ishment. 

So  far,  then,  the  fact  of  misfortune  coming  to  a  man 
proves  that  he  has  erred  against  some  law,  and  that,  iu 
consequence,  God  is  indignant  with  him.  It  may  be 
only  his  own  unconscious  transgression  of  some  physical 
law,  or  it  may  be  that  his  parents  have  transgressed 
some  law  of  health.   In  that  case,  the  indignation  of  God 


172 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


carries  with  it  no  moral  blame  :  it  is  simply  the  expres- 
sion of  laAv.  It  may  be  that  he  has  erred  against  his 
own  sense  of  the  moral  law,  and  that  remorse  has  fol- 
lowed ;  or  that  he  has  knowingly  broken  some  physical 
law  by  excess,  and  that  disease  has  followed.  In  that 
case,  he  recognizes  himself  that  the  spiritual  or  the  tem- 
jioral  misfortune  proves  that  God  is  indignant  with  him ; 
but  it  does  not  prove  that  God  has  ceased  to  love  him, — 
least  of  all,  that  he  has  forgotten  him.  It  proves  the 
exact  contrary.  Wherever  there  is  indignation,  there 
must  be  his  love ;  wherever  there  is  jiunishment,  there 
must  be  his  remembrance. 

The  cry  of  the  Jewish  world,  "  There  is  no  help  for 
David  in  God,"  was  hopelessly  wrong;  and  the  really 
noble  and  grand  thing,^  as  we  shall  see,  was  that  in  the 
very  midst  of  the  punishment  David  knew  that  they 
were  wrong. 

But  there  is  another  answer  to  the  question.  Does  mis- 
fortune prove  God's  anger?  In  the  case  of  the  guilty, 
it  jjroves,  as  we  have  seen,  God's  indignation.  But,  in 
the  case  of  the  innocent,  it  proves  God's  love  for  the 
race.  Supjjose  an  innocent  man  suffers  :  what  has  often 
been  the  verdict  of  the  world?  It  says,  "There  is  a 
crime  beneath  the  seeming  innocence,  or  he  Avould  not 
suffer."  That  was  the  judgment  of  the  friends  of  Job, 
and  the  Book  of  Job  gives  the  Old  Testament  answer  to 
this  blind  oinnion.  The  comjilete  answer  is  in  the  death 
and  suffering  of  Christ.  It  has  l)een  Avritten  there  for 
all  the  world  to  read  that  its  stupid  maxim  is  Avrong. 
Suffering  does  not  always  prove  God's  anger,  nor  prove 
the  sufferer's  sin.  If  increase  of  love  were  jjossible, 
never  did  the  Father  so  deeply  love  the  Son  as  at  the 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


173 


hour  of  the  cross;  if  increase  of  righteousness  were  2"'os- 
sible,  never  was  the  Son  more  sinless  tlian  in  that  hour 
of  human  agony  and  apj^arent  defeat. 

Nevertheless,  it  is  astonishing  how  strongly  this  super- 
stitious view  of  God's  anger  clings  to  the  minds  of  men. 
It  has  vitiated  the  whole  view  taken  of  the  atonement 
by  large  numbers  of  tlie  Church  of  Christ.  They  are  un- 
consciously influenced  by  the  thought  that  where  there 
is  suffering  there  must  be  sin.  The  cross  is  suffering: 
therefore,  somewhere  about  the  sufferer  there  must  be 
sin,  and  God  must  be  angry.  But  Christ  had  no  sin : 
then  what  does  the  suffering  mean  ?  Their  sup2)ressed 
premise,  the  maxim,  puts  them  into  a  sad  dilemma. 

At  hist,  light  comes  to  them, — not  spiritual,  but  logical 
light, —  and  the  thing  is  clear.  Man  sins;  and  sin  against 
an  Infinite  Being  is  infinite,  and  deserving  of  infinite 
pimishment.  A  debate  takes  place  in  the  natm-e  of  God. 
Justice  says :  "  I  must  punish.  I  will  take  the  law." 
Mercy  rei^lies,  "  Have  i)ity !  "  "  N"o,"  answers  Justice  : 
"  I  must  have  my  bond."  Then  Love  steps  in.  "  Is 
there  no  way  to  make  mercy  and  justice  at  one  ?  The 
Son  of  God  is  infinite.  Let  him  bear  as  man  the  infinite 
l^unishment ;  let  the  sins  of  the  race  lie  upon  him ;  let 
Justice  exact  from  him  the  forfeited  bond ;  let  God's 
anger  be  poured  upon  his  head.  Then,  Justice  being 
satisfied,  Mercy  can  have  her  gracious  way."  And  this 
was  done ;  and  the  cross  is  no  excepti(jn  to  the  maxim, 
Where  there  is  suffering,  there  is  God's  anger.  I  do  not 
say  that  this  theory  was  consciously  elaborated  out  of 
the  maxim,  but  it  is  certainly  its  child.  It  wears  on  its 
brow  the  traces  of  its  worldly  ])aternity.  It  is  entirely 
a  woi"k  of  the  mere  reasoning  faculty,  though  a  special 


174 


FAITH  AXD  FREEDOM. 


spirit viality  is  curiously  claimed  for  it.  There  is  not  a 
trace  of  an  intuition  in  it.  The  intuitioTis  are  all  against 
it.  It  outrages  the  moral  sense  :  if  I  murdered  a  man 
to-morroAv,  would  justice  be  satisfied  if  my  brother  came 
foi'ward  and  offered  to  be  jjut  to  death  in  my  stead  ?  It 
outrages  the  heart.  It  makes  a  Father  Avho  is  perfect 
love  pour  his  Avrath  upon  a  guiltless  Son  at  the  moment 
when  the  Son  in  perfect  love  chose  to  die  for  men.  It 
outrages  our  idea  of  God.  It  makes  him  satisfied  with  a 
fiction.  It  makes  his  notion  of  justice  totally  different 
from  that  which  he  has  given  us.  It  represents  the  All- 
Wise  as  in  a  j)ainful  dilemma,  out  of  which  he  can  only 
escape  by  fi  subterfuge.  It  di\  ides  his  nature,  setting 
one  part  of  it  in  opposition  Avith  another, —  mercy 
against  justice, —  and  so  destroys  all  conception  of  his 
self-unity. 

It  is  altogether  so  crowded  with  inconsistencies,  though 
so  logical  if  the  premises  are  allowed,  that  I  knoAV  no 
greater  proof  of  the  utter  inca23ability  of  the  mere  intel- 
lect to  deal  with  spiritual  things,  no  greater  proof  of  the 
truth  of  the  text,  "  The  natural  man  understandeth  not 
the  things  of  the  spirit,  for  they  are  spiritually  dis- 
cerned," than  the  wide  jjrcA-alence  of  this  forensic  A'iew 
of  the  Atonement.  For  this  theory  is  only  the  work  of 
the  understanding, —  only  the  work,  not  of  the  spiritual 
but  of  the  natural  man, —  in  the  minds  of  the  many  noble 
and  Christian  men  Avho  hold  it. 

Having  rejected  this  theory,  we  repeat  our  question, 
What  does  misfortune,  suffering,  coming  to  the  innocent, 
mean?  We  have  seen  that  it  cannot  mean,  as  in  the 
former  case,  God's  moral  indignation.  It  means  the 
exhibition  to  the  world,  when  the  suffering  is  voluntary, 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


175 


even  when  it  is  involiuitaiy,  of  the  centr;;!  in-hiciple  of 
God's  life,  the  revelation  to  men  that  self-sacrifice  is  life 
eternal ;  and,  inasmuch  as  this  revelation  redeems  man, 
it  means  God's  love  to  the  race  of  man.  This  is  the 
lesson  of  the  Cross.  For  what  is  Christ  crucified  ?  It  is 
the  declaration  in  time  of  the  eternal  self-giving  of  God, 
—  of  life  forever  given  away  that  all  may  live. 

For  the  very  being  of  God  is  in  self-sacrifice,  if  I  may 
be  allowed  to  use  the  word  se/fin  order  to  express  my 
meaning.  And  if  we  remove  from  the  notion  of  sacrifice 
its  earthly  concomitant  of  pain,  and  replace  it  by  perfect 
joy,  by  that  ecstasy  of  pleasure  which  in  rare  moments 
a  few  ill  this  world  have  felt  when  they  have  given  (til 
to  bestow  blessing  and  life  upon  another, —  that  thrill  of 
full  and  i^erfect  being  which  made  them  feel,  "  This  is 
life  indeed!"  —  then  we  have  some  notion  of  that  divine  * 
life  Avhich  is  God's  at  every  instant  of  his  being. 

3Ian  could  not  see  this  :  he  dimly  felt  it,  but  it  needed 
to  be  made  cjear.  So  God  sent  his  Son  to  reveal  it  in 
our  nature.  Christ  came  clothed  in  our  mortal  nature, 
and  through  it  lived  the  sacrificing  life  of  God.  But, 
owing  to  the  human  nature,  the  self-giving  was  neces- 
sarily accomplished,  not  with  perfect  joy  as  God  accom- 
plishes it,  but  with  a  mixture  of  keen  pain.  It  Avas  then 
that  we  saw  Love  conquering  pain  ;  all  the  misery  of 
rejected  affection,  the  scorn  and  hatred  of  men  heaped 
upon  one  sacred  keart,  and  yet  the  sufferer  loving  those 
Avho  hated  him,  losing  thought  of  all  the  ill  done  to  him 
in  pity  for  those  wlio  did  it,  dying  for  the  sake  of  his 
enemies.  And,  seeing  this,  the  world  beheld  the  Divine 
Life,  understood  it,  and  recognized  its  beauty.  It  won 
the  love  of  men.    "  If  I  be  lifted  uji,  I  will  draw  all  men 


176 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


unto  me."  It  won  the  love  of  God.  "  Therefore  doth 
my  Father  love  me,  because  I  lay  down  my  life  for  the 
sheej^."  This  is  the  attractive  power  of  the  Cross.  It 
first  attracts  Love  to  itself,  and  then,  by  deejiening  LoA^e, 
changes  the  heart. 

Many  explanations  have  been  given  of  the  Avay  in 
which  the  sacrifice  of  Christ  acts  on  men  as  a  redeeming 
230wer, —  mystical  interpretations,  logical  pchenies,  things 
which  require  theologians  to  ox]>lain  them.  "We  will  be 
content  to  fiml  an  exjilanation  in  that  wliicli  lies  around 
us,  in  the  doings  of  our  common  life,  fr.lliiig  back  on  the 
plain  j)rinci])le  that  tlie  laws  of  Christ's  life  were  the 
laws  of  human  nature.  If  we  look  for  it,  we  shall  find 
the  law  of  redemption  now  and  always  at  work.  Kew 
in  jjroclamation,  it  was  not  new  in  action.  No  man,  no 
nation,  has  ever  been  rescued  from  degradation,  except 
by  the  same  kind  of  work  as  that  hy  which  God  rescues 
the  world. 

Take  one  example  out  of  common  life,  A  widowed 
mother  had  an  only  son.  All  her  Ioa'C,  all  that  regret 
for  the  dead  which  transmutes  itself  into  love  of  the  liv- 
ing, centred  in  hira.  Her  life  had  but  one  thought,  and 
that  made  itself  into  service  of  him.  Every  day  was  a 
long  self-devotion  to  Avin  means  for  his  education  and  en- 
joyment. But  far  away  in  the  great  city  he  Avastes  her 
substance  in  riotous  living.  Health  makes  lum  thought- 
less, youth  makes  hira  cruel,  and  she  is  left  alone.  Only 
returning  Avhen  his  purse  or  his  health  is  exhausted,  she 
forgiA'CS  him  again  and  again,  and  again  and  again  he 
abandons  her.  At  last,  she  dies,  and  dies  for  him,  still 
hoj>ing,  still  belieA'ing  in  him,  and  leaving  to  him  her 
blessino-  and  her  Ioa'c.  Her  lono;  self-sacrifice  of  life  is 
over. 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


177 


And  ho  returns  to  tlie  country  village,  and  in  the  quiet 
evening  stands  beside  her  grave.  All  his  neglect  falls 
upon  his  heart,  all  her  long  j^atience  and  unbroken  ten- 
derness. A  spring  of  love  gushes  in  his  soul,  and  with 
it  hatred  of  his  sin,  self-loathing,  temptation  to  desj^air. 
But  he  remembers  that  she  forgave,  he  feels  himself 
still  loved,  and  in  a  softening  rush  of  penitence  he  re- 
solves that  she  shall  be  still  alive  to  him.  "I  ■will  be 
worth}"  of  her  yet :  with  broken  and  contrite  heart,  I  will 
requite  her  love  by  being  all  she  wished  me  once  to  be. 
We  may  meet  agam,  and  I  will  fall  at  her  feet  and  tell 
her  all  my  sorrow,  and  show  her  my  repentance."  A 
mighty  love  takes  him  out  of  self,  anil  makes  the  past 
hateful.  He  thinks  no  more  of  his  own  ])leasure,  but  of 
what  would  have  been  her  pleasure.  Tliat  hour  has 
redeemed  him.    He  enters  on  a  new  life. 

But,  observe,  it  is  not  j^rimarily  i-edemption  from  pun- 
ishment. The  ininishment  remains  :  tlie  2)<iin  at  his  lieart 
is  keen,  so  keen  that  one  might  almost  say  the  punish- 
ment has  only  now  begun.  But  it  is  remedial  suffering. 
It  keeps  her  who  sacrificed  all  for  him  constantly  before 
his  eyes ;  it  stings  him  into  new  efforts  to  be  worthy  of 
her;  it  urges  liim  to  do  for  others  tliat  whicli  she  did 
for  him.  In  this  way,  tlie  ])miishment  sloM'ly  alters  itself 
into  a  means  of  enn<j1)lement, —  a  thing  which  works  the 
peaceable  fruits  of  righteousness.  Thus,  an<l  tlius  only, 
is  he  redeemed  from  punishment.  But  he  ?6'  redeemed 
from  self,  from  hardness  of  heart,  from  baseness  of  char- 
acter, from  inability  to  feel  jiunishment,  from  the  sins  of 
the  jjast,  from  the  tendency  to  yield  at  once  to  temp- 
tation. 

Is  that  true  or  not  ?    Are  there  not  a  million  v  aried 


178 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


instances  of  tlie  same  kind  occurring  in  the  world  around 
us?  —  friend  ■who  so  sa^  es  friend  ;  wife  who  so  saves  her 
husband ;  minister  wlio  so  saves  liis  jieoj^le ;  men  Avho  so 
save  a  nation.  Is  not  that  simple,  human,  natural,  easy 
to  be  believed  in,  ai)pcaling  directly  to  our  reason  and 
our  affections,  worthy  of  our  reverence,  irresistibly  at- 
tractive ?  Then  turn  and  believe  in  the  redemj^tive 
power  of  Christ's  Atonement,  for  that  is  its  power. 
VV  hat  the  woman  did  for  her  son  Christ  did  for  all  man- 
kind. TVhat  influence  in  redeeming  her  son's  life  from 
self,  and  in  re-creating  his  life  through  a  j)rofound  love 
for  an  invisible  character,  she  had,  though  dead,  upon 
him,  Avhen  his  soul  was  touched  into  seeing  the  divine- 
ness  in  her  and  into  believing  it  as  the  divine  life  for 
liim,  is  identical  with  the  influence  of  the  work  of 
Christ's  life  and  death  upon  us,  when  we  see  them  and 
acknowledge  them  divine. 

Christ's  death  was  the  act  in  which  the  exhibition  of 
this  common  law  of  redemption  was  concentrated,  the 
central  rej^resentation  in  history  of  the  means  whereby 
life  is  gained  and  life  is  given.  And  to  believe  on  Christ 
is  to  look  iipon  liis  life  and  death  of  sacrifice,  and  to  say 
with  a  true  heart :  "  I  know  that  this  is  true  life.  I 
accejit  it  as  mine.  I  will  fulfil  it  in  thought  and  action, 
God  being  my  helper.  I  see  the  face  of  perfect  love,  and 
I  cannot  help  adoring ;  and,  as  I  adore,  I  feel  that  loA'e 
like  this,  which  gives  all,  is  the  only  way  of  reaching 
the  perfect  joy  of  perfect  being." 

Then  God  is  received  consciously  into  the  soul.  Pen- 
itence breaks  our  heart,  and  we  weep  away  our  sin. 
Knowing  that  Ave  are  forgiven,  we  forgive  ourselves. 
We  feel  in  ourselves  new  jiOSsibUities  of  nobleness,  for 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


179 


has  not  lie  loved  iis?  Our  life  changes  into  likeness  to 
his  life ;  for  in  aspiration  after  it  we  imitate  it,  and  in 
contemplating  love  of  it  we  grow  like  to  that  we  con- 
template. We  are  regenerated,  "  created  anew  in  Christ 
Jesus  nnto  good  works  which  God  hath  before  ordained 
that  we  should  walk  in  them."  This  is  the  subjective 
work  of  the  Atonement. 

And,  since  that  has  been  Avrought  in  the  world,  what 
effect  has  it  had  with  regard  to  our  question  as  to 
whether  the  suffering  of  good  men  proves  God's  anger 
or,  as  we  said,  God's  love  to  the  race '?  Those  who  have 
so  joined  -tliemselves  to  the  spirit  of  Christ's  life  know 
that,  as  long  as  luimanity  is  humanity,  they  can  only  do 
redemptive  work  through  suffering ;  for  he  who  opposes 
evil  must  bear  evil.  And,  knowing  this,  for  the  sake  of 
the  work  they  gladly  accept  the  jaain.  Nay,  more  :  they 
know  that  the  self-sacrifice,  though  it  is  linked  to  suffer- 
ing, is  in  itself  latent  joy,  for  it  is  the  very  life  of  God; 
and,  when  men  object  that  it  is  dreadful  that  the  inno- 
cent should  suffer  for  the  guilty,  the  innocent  rcjily: 
"What  is  that  to  you,  when  we  rejoice  in  it,  when  we 
accej^t  it  as  life  eternal,  when  we  th^nk  God  that  he  has 
counted  us  worthy  to  do  a  portion  on  earth  of  his  re- 
deeming work,  to  be  indeed  a  portion  of  his  ceaseless 
sacrifice  ?  We  know  now  that  to  die  for  men  is  the 
noblest  life  ;  and  if  we  are,  as  you  say,  good  and  true, 
we  are  only  so  in  him  whose  life  we  follow,  and  God  is 
right  to  choose  those  most  like  his  Son  to  carry  on  his 
Son's  work  and  to  be  crucified  with  him.  Our  suffering 
does  not  prove  that  God  is  angry  with  ns,  but  that  he 
loves  us  so  well  that  he  has  chosen  us  out  of  the  world 
to  manifest  him  to  the  world.    Our  suffering  jjroves  that 


180 


TAITII  AND  FREEDOM. 


he  loves  the  race ;  for  througli  that  whieli  is  of  Christ  in 
us  he  is  decLiring  his  character  to  men,  and  bringing 
them  to  follow  the  true  life  and  to  obtain  the  true  joy." 

Again,  to  pass  to  another  side  of  the  question,  it  is 
plain  that  those  who  feel  thus  are  reconciled  to  God. 
This  reconciliation  of  man  to  God  is  another  of  the  ideas 
of  the  Atonement.  IIow  does  it  take  jjlace  ?  how  is  it 
we  need  reconciliation  to  God? 

We  need  it,  because  our  first  idea  of  God  is  a  false 
one.  Our  fear,  united  with  our  ignorance,  make  out  of 
themselves  a  God  in  Avhom  omnipotence  is  united  to 
human  passion, —  the  God  of  suj)erstition  and  fanaticism. 
"VYe  are  angry  with  and  fear  this  false  idea.  Creating 
our  own  God,  it  is  no  wonder  that  we  hate  him.  For  of 
what  kind  is  he?  One  whose  might  makes  his  right, 
who  doeth  what  he  will,  but  whose  M'ill  is  unlimited  by 
that  which  we  recognize  as  goodness  ;  one  whose  love  is 
as  arbitrary  as  his  punishment  is  capricious,  who  saves 
this  creature  and  slays  another  for  his  own  glory  and  at 
his  own  fancy;  one  who  asks  for  slavish  worsliip;  who, 
when  he  makes  us  what  is  called  good,  does  it  Avithout 
demanding  any  effort  from  the  soul ;  wlio  requires  to  be 
propitiated  l)y  the  sacrifice  of  reason  and  conscience,  and 
docs  not  tell  us  wliy  ;  Avho  annexes  damnation  to  intel- 
lectual error,  and  in  whose  eyes  a  jiure  and  noble  life  is 
nothing,  if  he  who  lives  it  mistakes  doctrine.  I  need  not 
go  through  all  that  has  been  told  us  of  God  by  idolatries 
and  priesthoods  and  sects.  God's  answer  to  them  all  is 
this  :  "  Thou  thoughtest  that  I  was  altogether  such  a  one 
as  thyself." 

How  could  we  help  rebelling  against  that  Being,  how 
be  reconciled  to  him  ?    Man  must  rebel  against  a  God 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


181 


who  reproduces  himself  when  he  seeks  for  power.  Bad 
as  man  is,  he  cannot  bear,  when  he  thinks  truly,  to 
accept  as  his  ruler  one  who  seems  to  be  as  capricious 
as  a  tyrant,  and  more  dreadful  than  any  earthly  tyrant, 
because  his  power  is  supreme. 

We  are  told  by  some,  when  we  refuse  to  love  this 
God,  that  the  explanation  is  that  tlie  natural  man  is 
enmity  to  God.  There  is  a  sense  in  which  the  natural 
man  is  enmity  to  God ;  but  in  rejecting  a  God  of  this 
character  it  is  not  the  natural,  but  the  s])iritual  man 
which  acts.  It  is  in  asserting  this  false  God,  a  God 
created  by  the  natural  man,  that  the  natural  man  is 
enmity  to  the  true  God.  To  create  an  immoral  God, " 
and  to  give  him  an  immoral  worship  of  fear  and  igno- 
rance, is  to  be  an  enemy  of  God. 

In  all  our  best  moments,  we  are  incapable  of  being 
reconciled  to  this  Being.  We  can  never  be  at  one  with 
God,  atoned  to  him,  never  be  reconciled  to  him,  till 
we  gain  the  knowledge  of  God  as  he  truly  is.  It  was 
part  of  the  Atonement,  that  part  which  united  us  to  God, 
that  Christ  revealed  God  in  his  life  as  he  was  and  is 
for  evermore.  "He  who  hath  seen  me  hath  seen  the 
Father." 

He  revealed  a  Father,  and  therefore  an  Educator,  who 
will  bring  his  children  to  himself.  He  revealed  a  God  of 
compassion  and  love,  whose  life  was  in  giving  away  him- 
self for  all  his  creatures.  He  revealed  One  whose  will 
was  determined  by  right,  and  in  whom  justice  and  love 
and  purity  were  the  same  in  kind  as  they  are  in  us,  only 
perfect  and  infinite :  One  who  asked  to  be  loved,  not 
feared ;  to  be  trusted  in,  not  propitiated  by  our  unmean- 
ing sacrifices.  The  sacrifices  he  asked  for  Avere  such  as 
he  showed  us  in  his  Son  :  the  saci-ifice  of  our  own  pleas- 


182 


FAITH  AXD  FREEDOM. 


uro  and  will  when  tlioy  were  opposed  to  eternal  right, 
when  they  did  injury  to  onr  fellow-men  ;  the  sacrifice  of 
life  for  the  sake  of  truth  and  love  ;  not  the  sacrifice  to 
him  of  his  own  gifts  whereby  he  makes  himself  known, — 
the  gifts  of  reason  and  conscience  and  human  love. 
Nay,  it  is  to  these  that  he  appeals.  "  Wliy  of  your  own 
selves  judge  ye  not  what  is  right?  "said  his  Son.  "If 
a  man  love  not  his  brother  Avhom  he  hath  seen,  how  can 
he  love  God  whom  he  hath  not  seen?"  said  his  apostle. 
The  God  wliom  Christ  revealed  chose  si^ecial  men  out  of 
the  world,  not  that  they  alone  should  be  saved,  but  that 
they  might  be  messengers  to  do  his  saA-ing  work  on  all ; 
and  he  cliose  them  not  cajiriciously,  l)ut  liecause  they 
Avere  more  loving  and  true  than  the  rest,  and  therefore 
better  fitted  for  his  work.  Tlie  God  whom  Christ  re- 
A-ealed  was  revealed  as  one  Avho  punished  guilt,  Avho 
Avould  not  s]iare  retribution,  but  the  punishment  was  to 
be  remedial,  and  the  retribution  to  be  used  as  a  means 
of  salvation  ;  as  one  Avho  did  not  replace  our  effort  by 
irresistible  and  imjierial  grace,  but  Avhose  grace  enabled 
us  to  Avork  out,  as  under  a  free  goA-ernment,  our  OAvn 
salvation,  and  demanded  the  effort  of  the  soul,  that  we 
might  become  each  a  distinct  person  Avith  a  distinct 
character.  And,  because  alloAving  of  this  individuality 
and  encouraging  it,  it  folloAvs  that  the  obedience  he 
asked  Avas  not  a  blind  hnt  a  reasonable  one,  and  that,  if 
the  life  Avas  like  his  Son's,  intellectual  error  was  not 
subject  to  damnation. 

I  need  not  dAA'ell  on  all  the  points;  l;)Ut,AA-hcn  this  reve- 
lation Avas  made,  man  was  freed  from  fear  and  hatred  of 
God,  man  could  become  at  one  Avith  God,  man  Avas 
reconciled  to  God.  And  the  gospel  truth  is  this :  that, 
once  a  man  really  sees  and  believes  in  God  in  Christ,  he 


THE  ATONEMENT. 


183 


cannot  rebel,  lie  cannot  liate,  he  cannot  fear,  lie  cannot 
be  unreconciled  to  him. 

There  is  nothing  left  to  hate  or  fear.  Hate  one  whom 
we  believe  to  be  our  Father  in  all  tlie  profound  meaning 
of  the  word  !  Fear  one  who  gives  his  very  life  for  us  ! 
It  is  impossible.  Once  we  believe  it,  we  are  saved, — 
saved,  first,  from  our  own  ignorant  and  gliastly  idea  of 
God,  which  sets  all  our  life  wrong ;  saved,  secondly, 
from  our  sin,  because  the  true  idea  of  God  creates 
infallibly  a  life  in  accordance  with  it. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  and  taking  the  principles  we 
have  just  exjiounded  as  our  key,  has  the  idea  which  men 
have  of  God's  anger  no  truth  beneath  its  error? 

Yes,  this  truth  :  that  as  long  as  a  man  does  not  know 
God  in  Christ,  does  not  understand  that  God  is  love,  and 
love  him  as  a  father,  he  will  think  that  punishment  is 
anger,  and  tliis  belief  w^ill  make  him  angry  with  God. 
For  love,  exhibited  in  tlie  process  of  his  education,  must 
often  take  the  form  of  chastisement,  and  seem  wrath  to 
him  because  he  does  not  comprehend  its  tenderness. 

Suppose  a  man  with  a  sore  disease,  and  at  the  same 
time  mad.  The  surgeon  approaches  with  his  knife  to 
amputate  the  diseased  limb,  and  cuts  deep  and  relent- 
lessly. The  sufferer  sees  no  reason  for  the  infliction  of 
the  pain,  does  not  believe  in  the  surgeon's  kindness, 
whose  whole  work  seems  to  him  mere  capricious  cruelty. 
It  is  so  with  the  sinner  who  does  not  know  God  as  a 
loving  Father.    His  work  to  liiin  is  often  anger. 

But  grant  that  he  gains  his  reason,  becomes  conscious 
of  his  disease,  desires  to  be  free  from  it,  and  knows  the 
surgeon's  heart:  his  flesh  quivers,  his  ])ain  is  bitter,  but 
he  understands  the  meaning  of  the  suffering,  and,  though 
not  one  deep  incision  is  spared,  he  claims  the  surgeon  as 


184 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


his  friend,  he  recognizes  his  "work  as  tlie  work  of  love, 
and,  if  some  niadinan  were  to  say,  "  See  how  cruel ;  see 
how  the  man  who  said  he  wished  your  good  is  working 
you  evil,"  tlie  sufferer  would  smile  the  smile  of  trust 
and  i)ity.  "  You  mistake,"  he  would  reply  :  "  I  trust  my 
friend's  tenderness.  I  know  his  heart :  it^  is  I  who  pity 
you,  if  you  cannot  see  his  love."  It  is  so  with  the  man 
who  believes  in  the  love  of  God  his  Father. 

So  it  was  Avith  David.  No  help  for  me  in  God !  God 
angry  with  me  !  God  forsaking  me  !  No,  he  breaks  out: 
"The  Lord  is  my  shield,  my  glory,  and  the  uplifter  of 
my  head."  I  know  I  am  being  punished  for  my  sin,  I 
know  I  have  done  wrong  to  God  and  man  ;  but  I  am  not 
so  lost  as  to  imagine  that  ])unishment  means  that  I  have 
no  help  in  God,  and  not  that  it  means  that  he  is  with 
me,  yes,  more  closely  than  in  the  daj's  of  my  prosperity. 
Deserted  by  God !  No !  "  I  cried  unto  God  with  my 
voice,  and  he  heard  from  his  holy  hill." 

This  is  entirely  splendid.  This  is  faith  overcoming 
the  world.  This  is  the  trust  M'hich  brings  all  the  powers 
of  the  unseen  to  a  man's  side.  This  is  the  spirit  which 
gives  elasticity  to  life,  and  makes  triumph  out  of  mis- 
fortune. This  is  the  spirit  Avhich  transmutes  punishment 
into  strength,  and  sin  into  goodness.  This  is  the  spirit 
which,  by  believing  in  the  eternal  love  of  God  and  dis- 
believino-  in  his  anirer,  realizes  God  as  a  Father  and  him- 
self  as  a  son,  bound  together  by  immortal  bonds,  which 
are  knit  closer  by  trial  as  well  as  by  joy.  This  is  the 
belief  which  makes  a  life  and  a  character  as  noble  as 
that  of  this  old  Hebrew  king,  who  in  these  early  times 
anticipated  in  experience  the  ])rofoundest  Christian  feel- 
ing, and  knew  by  heart  the  God  of  the  Christians  before 
their  Christ  had  come. 


DETOTIOIsT  TO  THE  COlSrYE^J"- 
TIONAL. 

1868. 

"  Ye  stiff-necked  and  uncircumcised  in  lieart  and  ears,  ye  do  always 
resist  the  Holy  Ghost :  as  your  fathers  did,  so  do  ye.  Which  of  the 
prophets  liave  not  your  fathers  persecuted  ?  and  they  have  slain  them 
which  shewed  before  of  the  coming  of  tlie  Just  One,  of  wliom  ye 
have  been  now  the  betrayers  and  murderers :  who  have  received  the 
law  by  the  disposition  of  angels,  and  have  not  kept  it." — Acts  vii., 
51-53. 

The  rejection  of  Christ  by  the  Jewisli  jieoplc  w.as  a 
national  sin :  it  was  the  act  of  the  whole  nation.  Plis 
death  Avas  the  result  of  the  full  development  of  the  then 
Jewish  mode  of  looking  at  the  world :  the  spirit  of  the 
age,  among  the  Jews,  killed  him. 

I  jjut  it  in  that  way  because  the  term,  a  national  sin, 
wants  a  clear  definition.  It  is  used  at  present  in  a  way 
which  is  quite  reckless  of  any  settled  meaning.  Every 
party,  even  every  sect  in  the  country,  declares  its  oppo- 
nents guilty  of  a  national  sin.  But  a  national  sin  is  not 
an  evil  done  by  any  one  party  to  the  nation,  but  an  evil 
done  by  the  n.ation  itself,  a  direct  evil  consciously  chosen 
and  adliered  to  ;  or  an  evil  neglect  or  blindness  which 
takes  its  rise  from  tlie  wliole  tone  and  spirit  of  the  mass 
of  the  peoijle.     I  might  mention  courses  of  2:)olitical 


186 


FAITH  AKD  FREEDOM. 


action  in  which  England  has  jjersisted  for  years,  tlirough 
all  changes  of  party,  which  are  of  the  character  of  na- 
tional sins  ;  but  I  w  ill  content  myself  with  an  illustration 
which  will  not  stir  ujj  anger.  Ajjart  from  jjolitical  acts  or 
political  opinions,  on  which  the  generality  of  the  jjeople 
act,  the  national  sin  of  the  England  of  to-day  is  extrava- 
gance, waste  of  money.  From  the  administration  of  tlie 
army  and  navy  doAvu  to  the  administration  of  the  house- 
hold of  the  poorest  dock  laborer,  thei-e  is,  generally 
sjieaking,  no  conscientious,  educated,  cultured  expendi- 
ture or  care  of  money.  The  poor  are  even  more  extrav- 
agant, more  reckless,  than  the  rich.  And  the  dreadfid 
jjunishmont  which  follows  on  the  sin  of  waste  of  money 
is  this,  that  the  nation  becomes  blind  to  the  true  uses 
of  money.  It  spends  nearly  fifteen  million  a  year  on 
its  anny  and  a  little  more  than  one  million  on  educa- 
tion, so  intense  an  absurdity  that  it  only  seems  neces- 
sary to  mention  it  to  expose  it.  It  sj^ends  ten  million  a 
year  upon  its  navy,  and  is  so  stingy  toward  the  science 
which  develops  the  intellect  of  the  whole  jseople,  and 
toward  the  art  which  exalts  and  refines  the  soul,  as  only 
to  vote  about  one  hundred  thoiisand  a  year  for  these 
objects;  so  that  things  the  value  of  which  cannot  be 
rei>resented  in  money,  and  on  which  great  sums  have 
been  spent,  are  perishing  for  want  of  a  little  wise  ex- 
jienditure.  We  are  extravagant  where  we  ought  to  be 
economical,  and  economical  where  we  ought  to  expend 
freely.  This  is  our  jiunishment ;  and  future  Englishmen 
will  look  back  with  amazement  upon  this  time,  Avhcn  we 
sjient  millions  on  war-ships  the  gmis  of  which  cannot  be 
served  in  a  fresh  breeze,  and  left,  to  take  one  example, 
for  want  of  a  fcAV  thousands,  the  noblest  s])ecimens  of 


DEVOTION  TO  THE  CONVENTIONAL.  187 


Assyrian  art  to  rot  rai)i(lly  away  in  a  daiiiji  cellar  in  the 
British  Museum.  Not  many  months  have  passed  since 
the  great  representation  of  a  lion-hunt,  carved  thousands 
of  years  ago  by  an  artist  who  puts  our  animal  sculpture 
to  shame,  and  who  worked  from  personal  observation  of 
the  lion  in  his  ^•igorons  contest  and  in  his  agony,  has 
been  placed  in  tliat  deadly  vault.  Xow,  so  rapid  has 
been  the  destruction  that  in  certain  parts  there  is 
scarcely  a  vestige  left  of  the  labor  of  the  noble  hand, 
and  a  white  fluff  of  damj^,  gathering  iipon  the  stone,  has 
eaten  away  all  tlie  delicate  Unes  and  subtle  carving  over 
a  great  part  of  the  work.  In  a  few  years  or  so,  in  spite 
of  the  glazing,  the  whole  may  be  corrujit  dust.  I  have 
mentioned  this  partly  in  the  hope  that  it  will  be  taken 
up  by  some  one  who  has  some  interest  left  in  these  sub- 
jects, and  some  influence  to  use  upon  them,  and  partly 
to  show  how  a  national  sin,  like  extravagance,  avenges 
itself  by  stinginess  in  matters  where  stinginess  is  de- 
struction and  disgrace. 

But  one  of  the  worst  of  national  sins  is  the  rejection 
or  the  neglect  ]>y  the  mass  of  the  people  of  the  great 
men  whom  God  has  sent  to  save  the  nation,  to  teach  the 
nation,  or  to  give  ideas  to  the  nation.  It  is  a  proof  of 
the  perfect  culture  of  a  people,  of  its  being  truly  civil- 
ized, in  intellect  and  spirit  as  well  as  in  prosperity,  when 
it  recognizes,  as  it  were  intuiti^•cly,  its  great  men,  j^uts 
them  forAvard  at  once  as  rulers,  and  obeys  their  guidance. 
It  is  a  proof  of  its  failing  j^oM'er,  of  its  rctrogresjion,  of 
its  diseased  condition,  when  it  neglects,  despises,  or  kills 
its  great  men.  Of  this  j^roijosition,  for  the  two  are  one, 
history  supplies  a  thousand  instances.  For  the  man  of 
noble  genius,  the  i)rophet  or  whatever  else  you  call  him, 


188 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


is  the  test  of  the  nation.  He  exists  not  only  to  do  his 
own  active  worlv,  but  to  2)assively  prove  Avliat  is  trne 
gold  or  false ;  and  as  many  as  he  saves  he  dooms.  Tliose 
are  lost  who  reject  him, —  the  whole  nation  is  lost  if  the 
whole  nation  rejects  him, — for  it  is  not  he  so  much 
w^hom  it  rejects  as  the  saving  ideas  of  which  he  is  the 
vehicle. 

Hence,  when  such  a  man  apjiears,  the  question  on 
which  hangs  the  fate  of  the  jieople  is  this :  Will  the 
nation  recognize  him  or  not?  will  it  envy  and  destroy 
him,  or  believe  in  him  and  follow  him '? 

That  question,  which  has  again  and  again  been  placed 
before  the  nations  of  the  world,  was  placed  in  the  most 
complete  manner  before  the  Jews  at  the  apjiearance  of 
Christ,  the  perfect  Man, — is  jjlaced  in  him  before  each 
of  us  as  individual  men, —  since  he  was  not  only  the 
representation  of  that  which  was  noblest  in  the  Jewish 
nation,  but  of  that  Avhich  is  noblest  in  humanity.  Christ 
was  the  test  of  the  Jewish  nation,  and  his  rejection  by 
them  jiroved  that  they  Avere  lost  as  a  nation.  Christ  is 
the  test  of  each  of  us,  and  our  acceptance  or  rejection  of 
him  prov  es  that  we  are  worthy  or  unworthy  of  our  hu- 
manity. This  passive,  unconscious  work  of  Christ  was 
recognized  by  the  wisdom  of  the  old  man  Simeon  when 
he  said,  "This  child  is  set  for  tlie  fall  and  tlie  rising 
again  of  manv  in  Israel."  It  was  reco£rnized  bv  Christ 
himself  in  many  of  his  parables,  notably  when  he  said, 
"For  judgment,"  i.e.,  for  division,  for  sifting  of  the  chaff 
from  the  wheat,  "am  I  come  into  the  world." 

And  so  it  Avas,  Avherever  he  Avent  he  Avas  the  touch- 
stone of  men.  Those  Avho  Avere  pure,  single-eyed,  and 
true-hearted  saAV  him,  clung  to  him,  and  loAed  him: 


DEVOTION  TO  THE  CONVENTIONAL.  189 


those  who  were  conscious  of  their  need  and  sin,  weary 
of  long  searching  after  rest,  and  not  finding,  weary 
of  conventionalities  and  hypocrisies,  believed  in  him, 
drank  deep  of  his  Spirit,  and  found  redemi^tion  and 
repose.  They  flew  to  him  as  naturally  as  steel  to  the 
magnet.  Those  who  were  base  of  heart  or  false  of  heart, 
proud  of  their  sin,  or  hardened  in  their  prosjjerous  hy- 
jjocrisy,  men  who  worshipped  the  mummy  of  a  past  relig- 
ion, naturally  hated  him,  recoiled  from  him,  and,  to  get 
rid  of  him,  hanged  him  on  a  tree. 

In  doing  so, —  and  this  Avas  the  deed  of  the  mass  of 
the  people, — they  destroyed  tlieir  nationality  which  was 
hidden  in  their  reception  of  Christ.  It  is  at  least  a 
curious  coincidence  with  this  view  tliat,  when  the  jn-iest- 
hood  before  Pilate  openly  rejected  Christ  as  king,  they 
did  it  in  these  words, —  words  which  repudiated  their 
distinct  existence  as  a  nation, —  "We  have  no  king  but 
C-esar." 

He  did  nothing  overt  to  produce  this.  He  simjDly 
lived  his  life,  and  it  acted  on  the  Jewish  world  as  an 
electric  current  upon  water :  it  separated  its  elements. 

It  will  not  be  without  interest  to  dwell  upon  some  of 
the  reasons  which  caused  this  rejection  of  Christ  among 
the  Jews,  and  to  show  liow  the  reasons  of  the  rejection 
or  acceptance  of  Christ  are  not  jirimarily  to  be  found 
in  certain  spiritual  states  or  feelings  which  belong  to  a 
transcendental  region  into  which  men  of  the  world  can- 
not or  do  not  care  to  enter,  but  in  elements  of  action 
and  thought  which  any  man  may  recognize  at  work  in 
the  world  around  him,  and  in  his  own  heart;  in  reasons 
which  are  identical  with  those  which  cause  a  nation  to 


190 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


reverence  or  neglect  its  really  great  men,  to  lead  a 
noble  or  an  ignoble  life. 

The  first  of  these  is  devotion  to  the  conventional. 

It  is  jjractically  identical  with  want  of  individnality, 
one  of  the  most  jiainful  deficiencies  in  our  ])resent 
society. 

Now,  the  rectification  of  that  evil  lies  at  the  root  of 
Christianity.  Christ  came  to  jjroclaim  and  to  insure 
the  distinct  life,  the  originality,  of  each  man.  All  the 
principles  he  laid  down,  all  the  teaching  of  his  fol- 
lowers as  recorded  in  the  Epistles,  tend  to  produce 
individuality,  rescue  men  from  being  mingled  up,  indis- 
tinguishable atoms,  with  the  mass  of  men,  teach  them 
that  they  possess  a  distinct  character,  which  it  is  God's 
Avill  to  educate ;  distinct  gifts  which  God  the  Spirit  Avill 
ins2)ire  and  develop;  a  i^eculiar  work  for  Avhich  each 
man  is  elected,  and  in  performing  which  his  personality 
will  become  more  and  more  defined. 

Now,  the  spn-it  of  the  Avorld,  Avhen  it  is  conventional, — 
and  when  is  it  not?  —  is  in  exact  opjjosition  to  this.  Its 
tendency  is  to  reduce  all  men  and  women  to  one  jiat- 
tern,  to  level  the  landscape  of  humanity  to  a  dead  plain, 
to  clip  all  the  trees  which  are  growing  freely,  "of  tlieir 
own  divine  vitality,"  into  pollards,  to  wear  all  individu- 
ality down  into  uniformity.  There  must  be  nothing 
original, —  in  the  world's  language,  eccentric,  erratic; 
men  must  desire  nothing  strongly-,  think  nothing  Avhich 
the  generality  do  not  think,  haA'e  no  strongly  outlined 
character.  The  influence  of  society  must  be  collective, 
it  must  reject  as  a  portion  of  it  the  influence  of  any 
marked  individuality.  Custom  is  to  be  lord  an.d  king, — 
uay,  despot.    We  must  all  dress  in  the  same  Avay,  read 


DEVOTION  TO  THE  CONVENTIONAL. 


191 


the  same  books,  talk  of  the  same  things;  ami,  when  we 
change,  change  altogether,  like  Wordsworth's  cloud, 
"which  nioveth  altogether,  if  it  move  at  all."  We  do 
not  object  to  progress,  but  we  do  object  to  eccentricity. 
Society  must  not  be  affronted  by  originality.  It  is  a 
rudeness.  It  suggests  that  society  might  be  better,  that 
there  may  be  an  imperfection  here  or  there.  Level 
everybody,  and  then  let  ns  all  collectively  advance ;  but 
no  one  must  leave  the  ranks  or  step  to  the  front. 

This  is  the  spirit  which  either  cannot  see,  or,  seeing, 
hates  men  of  genius.  They  are  in  conflict  with  the 
known  and  accredited  modes  of  action.  They  do  not 
jjaint  pictures  in  the  manner  of  the  ancients,  nor  judge 
political  events  in  accordance  with  public  opinion,  nor 
write  poems  which  the  customary  intellect  can  under- 
stand, nor  lead  a  jjolitical  party  according  to  precedent. 
They  are  said  to  shock  the  world.  As  if  that  was  not 
the  very  best  thing  which  could  happen  to  the  world ! 
So  it  comes  to  pass  that  they  are  depreciated  and  neg- 
lected, or,  if  they  are  too  great  and  persist,  persecuted 
and  killed.  And,  indeed,  it  is  not  difficult  to  get  rid  of 
them ;  for  you  have  only  to  increase  the  weight  of  the 
spirit  of  custom  and  bring  it  to  bear  upon  them,  and 
that  will  settle  the  question,  for  men  of  genius  cannot 
breathe  in  this  atmosphere,  it  kills  them:  the  air  must 
be  natural  in  which  they  live,  and  the  society  must  be 
free.  The  pitiable  thing  in  English  society  now  is,  not 
only  the  difficulty  of  an  original  man  existing  in  it,  but 
that  society  is  in  danger  of  becoming  of  so  dreadful  a 
uniformity  that  no  original  man  can  be  developed  in  it 
at  all.  This,  if  anything,  will  become  the  ruin  of  Eng- 
land's greatness. 


192 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


Tliere  is,  it  is  triu',  a  kind  of  reaction  going  on  at 
present  against  this  tyranny  of  society.  Young  men 
and  Avomcn,  weary  of  monotonous  |)leasures,  are  in  re- 
bellion ;  but  the  whole  social  condition  has  been  so  de- 
graded that  they  rush  into  still  more  artificial  and 
unnatural  pleasures  and  excitements.  In  endeavoring  to 
become  free,  they  enslave  themselves  tlie  more. 

Tliose  ^vho  might  do  much  do  little.  It  is  one  of  the 
advantages  of  wealth  and  high  position  that  those  who 
possess  them  may  initiate  the  uncustomary  without  a  cry 
being  raised  against  them.  But,  even  with  every  oppor- 
tunity, how  little  imagination  do  they  ever  display,  how 
little  invention,  how  little  they  do  to  relieve  the  melan- 
choly uniformity  of  our  pleasures,  or  the  intense  joyless- 
ness  of  our  work! 

Xow,  this  was  2)recisely  the  spirit  of  the  Jewish  relig- 
ious world  at  the  time  of  Christ.  Men  were  bound  down 
to  a  multitude  of  fixed  rules  and  maxims,  they  were 
hedged  in  on  all  sides.  It  was  all  arranged  how  they 
were  to  live  and  die,  to  repent  and  make  atonement,  to 
fast  and  pray,  to  believe  and  to  worshij?,  to  dress  and 
move.  It  was  the  most  finished  conventionalism  of  relig- 
ion, in  spite  of  the  different  sects,  which  the  world  has 
ever  seen. 

Then  came  Christ,  entirely  original,  proclaiming  new 
ideas,  or,  at  least,  old  truths  in  a  new  form,  making 
thoughts  imiversal  which  had  been  particular,  over- 
throwing worn-out  ceremonies,  satirizing  and  denouncing 
things  gray  with  the  dust  of  ages,  letting  in  the  light  of 
truth  into  the  chambers  Avhere  the  priests  and  lawyers 
spun  their  webs  of  theology  to  ensnare  the  free  souls  of 
men,  tramjiling  down  relentlessly  the  darling  customs  of 


DEVOTION  TO  THE  CONVENTIONAL.  193 


the  old  conservatism,  shocking  find  bewildering  the  relig- 
ious society.    And  they  were  dismayed  and  horrified. 

He  did  not  keej),  they  said,  the  Sal)bath  day.  He  ate 
and  drank  —  abominable  iniquity!  —  with  pubUcans  and 
sinners.  He  allowed  a  fallen  woman  to  touch  him. 
Worse  still,  he  did  not  wash  his  hands  before  he  ate 
bread.  He  did  not  teach  as  the  scril^es  did.  He  did  not 
live  the  time-honored  and  ascetic  life  of  a  prophet.  He 
dared  to  speak  against  the  jnuesthood  and  the  aristoc- 
racy. He  associated  with  fishermen.  He  came  from  Naz- 
aretli.  That  was  enough:  no  good  could  come  from  Naza- 
reth. He  was  a  carpenter's  son,  and  illiterate ;  and  no 
jjrophet  was  made,  or  could  be  made,  out  of  such  mate- 
rials. And  this  man !  he  dares  to  disturb  us,  to  contest 
our  maxims,  to  set  at  naught  our  customs,  to  array  him- 
self against  our  despotism.  "  Come,  let  us  kill  him." 
And  so  they  crucified  him.  The  conventional  spirit  of 
society  in  Jerusalem,  that  was  one  of  the  murderers  of 
Christ.  They  did  not  see,  the  wretched  men,  that  in 
murdering  him  they  murdered  their  nation  also. 

So  far  for  this  conventional  spirit  as  that  which  hinders 
the  development  or  obstructs  the  work  of  genius,  and  as 
that  which,  in  strict  analogy  with  its  work  to-day,  killed 
the  Prince  of  Life  long  ago  in  Jerusalem.  Let  me  take 
the  question  now  out  of  the  realm  of  thought  and  his- 
tory, and  apply  it  practically. 

Ask  yourselves  two  questions :  First,  what  would  be 
the  fate  of  Christ  if  he  were  suddenly  to  appear  as  a 
teacher  in  the  middle  of  London,  as  he  did  of  old  in  the 
middle  of  Jerusalem  ?  How  would  our  orthodox  relig- 
ious society  and  our  conventional  so(;ial  world  receive 
him?    Desiring  to  speak  Avith  all  reverence,  he  would 


194 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


horrify  the  one  by  his  heterodox  oj^inioiis,  as  they  wouhl 
be  called ;  the  other  by  his  absolute  carelessness  and 
scorn  of  many  of  the  very  palladia  of  society.  SujjjJOS- 
ing  he  were  to  denounce  —  as  he  woidd  in  no  measured 
terms  —  our  system  of  caste;  attack,  as  he  did  of  old  in 
Jiidea,  our  most  cherished  maxims  about  2>i"operty  and 
rights;  live  in  ojjposition  to  certain  social  rules,  receiv- 
ing sinners  and  dining  with  outcasts ;  tear  away  the 
flimsy  A-eil  of  words  whereby  Ave  excuse  our  extrava- 
gance, our  vanity,  our  25ushing  for  position ;  contemn 
with  scorn  our  accredited  hypocrisies,  which  we  think 
allowable,  because  they  make  the  surface  of  society 
smooth ;  live  among  us  his  free,  bold,  unconventional, 
outspoken  life, —  how  should  we  receive  him?  It  is  a 
question  which  it  is  worth  while  that  society  should  ask 
itself. 

I  trust  more  would  hail  his  advent  than  we  think. 
I  believe  the  time  is  come  when  men  are  sick  of  false- 
hood, sick  of  the  tyranny  of  custom,  sick  of  liA'ing  in 
unreality ;  that  they  are  longing  for  escape,  longing  for 
a  new  life  and  a  new  order  of  things,  longing  for  some 
fresh  ideas  to  come  and  stir,  like  the  angel,  the  stagnant 
pool.  What  is  the  meaning  of  the  vague  hopes  every- 
where exjjressed  al)out  the  new  Parliament  ?  It  really 
means  that  England  is  anxious  for  a  more  ideal,  a  more 
true  and  serious  life,  a  reformed  society. 

Again,  to  connect  tliis  first  question  with  the  religious 
world :  suppose  Christ  Avere  to  come  now  and  proclaim 
in  Scotland  that  the  Sabbath  Avas  made  for  man,  or  to 
preach  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  as  the  full  rcA-elation 
of  God  to  men  accustomed  to  hear  the  gospel  scheme 
discussed  each  Sunday.    In  the  first  case  he  Avould  be 


DEVOTION  TO  THE  CONVENTIONAL. 


195 


persecuted  as  an  infidel,  and  in  tlio  second  as  a  heretic. 
Supposing  he  were  now  to  speak  against  sacerdotal  jn-e- 
tension  or  the  worship  of  the  letter  of  the  Bible,  against 
a  religion  Avhich  sought  to  gain  life  from  minute  observ- 
ances, or  against  a  Sadducean  denial  of  all  that  is  spirit- 
ual (a  tendency  of  the  religious  liberals  of  to-day),  as 
strongly  and  as  sharply  as  he  spoke  at  Jerusalem, —  how 
would  he  escape?  The  religious  world  could  not  crucify 
him,  but  they  would  open  on  him  the  tongue  of  pei"se- 
cution. 

I  belieA-e  there  are  thousands  who  would  join  them- 
selves to  him,  thousands  more  than  recognized  him  in 
Judea, —  for  the  world  has  advanced  indeed  since  then, — 
thousands  of  true  men  from  among  all  religious  bodies, 
and  thousands  from  among  those  who  are  now  plenti- 
fully sprinkled  with  the  epithets  of  rationalists,  infidels, 
heretics,  and  atheists ;  but  there  are  thousands  who  call 
themselves  by  his  name  who  would  turn  from  him  in 
dismay  or  in  dislike,  who  would  neglect  or  persecute 
bun,  for  he  woidd  come  among  our  old  conservatisms  of 
religion,  among  our  doctrinal  systems  and  close  creeds, 
superstitious,  false  liberalisms,  priesthoods,  and  ritual- 
isms, as  he  came  of  old  among  them  all  in  Jerusalem,  like 
lightning,  to  consume  and  wither  everything  false,  retro- 
grade, conventional,  restricted,  uncharitable,  and  super- 
stitious; to  kindle  into  life  all  that  is  living,  loving,  akin 
to  light,  and  full  of  truth  within  our  religious  world.  If 
we  could  accept  the  revolution  he  would  make,  our 
national  religion  would  be  saved :  if  not,  it  would  be 
enervated  by  the  blow,  and  die. 

Brethren,  Ave  ought,  realizing  these  things  as  members 
of  society  or  members  of  any  religious  body, —  realizing. 


196 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


I  say,  Christ  speaking  to  us  as  he  would  speak  now, —  to 
feel  our  falseness,  and,  in  the  horror  of  it,  to  act  like 
men  who  have  discovered  a  traitor  in  their  camj-),  whom 
they  must  destroy  or  themselves  perish.  We  may  save 
our  nation  if  we  resolve,  each  one  here  for  himself,  to 
free  ourselves  from  cant  and  formalism  and  superstition, 
to  step  into  the  clear  air  of  freedom,  individuality,  and 
truth,  to  live  in  crystal  uprightness  of  life  and  holiness 
of  heart. 

And,  lastly,  ask  yourselves  this  second  question,  how 
far  the  spirit  of  the  world,  as  devotion  to  convention- 
ality, to  accredited  ojiinion,  is  jjreventing  you  personally 
from  receiving  Christ. 

Is  your  sole  aim  the  endeavor  to  please  your  party, 
running  after  it  into  that  which  you  feel  as  evil,  as  Avell 
as  that  which  you  feel  as  good;  forfeiting  your  Christian 
individuality  as  a  son  of  God,  that  you  may  follow  in  the 
wake  of  the  jjublic  opinion  of  your  jjarty?  Is  that  your 
view  of  manly  duty?  Then  you  cannot  receive  Christ, 
for  he  demands  that  you  should  be  true  to  your  own 
soul. 

Are  you  permitting  yourself  to  chime  in  with  the  low 
morality  of  the  day,  to  accejit  the  common  standard  held 
by  the  generality,  repudiating,  as  if  it  were  a  kind  of 
Christian  charity  to  do  so,  the  desire  to  be  better  than 
your  neigliVjors,  and  so  coming  at  lust  to  join  in  the  light 
laiigh  with  which  the  world  treats  social  immoralities, 
reckless  extravagance,  the  dishonesty  of  trade  or  the 
dishonesty  of  the  exchange,  or  the  more  flagrant  shame, 
dishonesty,  and  folly  which  adorn  the  turf, —  letting 
evils  take  their  course  because  society  does  not  protest 
as  yet,  till  gradually  the  evils  appear  to  you  at  first  en- 


DEVOTION  TO  THE  CONVENTIONAL. 


197 


durable,  and  then  even  beautiful,  being  protected  by  the 
deities  of  Custom  and  Fashion,  which  Ave  enthrone  in- 
stead of  God?  Are  you  drifting  into  such  a  state  of 
heart  ?  If  so,  you  cannot  exjaect  to  be  able  to  receive 
Christ,  for  lie  demands  tluit  life  should  be  ideal :  not 
only  moral,  but  godlike ;  not  the  jjrudence  of  silence 
about  evil,  but  tlie  iin])rudence  of  bold  sej)aration  from 
evil. 

And,  leaving  much  behind,  to  come  home  to  the  inner 
sjjiritual  life,  is  your  religion  only  the  creature  of  custom, 
not  of  conviction,  only  conventional,  not  individual  ? 
Have  you  received  and  adopted  current  opinions  because 
they  are  current,  without  inquiry,  without  interest,  with- 
out any  effort  of  the  soul, —  orthodox  because  it  is  the 
fashion  to  be  orthodox,  or  heterodox  because  it  is  the 
fashion  to  be  heterodox  ?  Hc^w  can  you  receive  Christ, 
—  for  where  he  comes  he  claims  reality,  the  living 
energy  of  interest,-  the  passion  of  the  soul  for  light  and 
progress?  Ye  must  be  born  again,  born  out  of  a  dead, 
Pharisaic,  conventional  form  of  religion  into  a  living 
individual  imion  with  tlie  life  of  God.  Some  may  tell 
you  not  to  inquire,  lest  you  should  doubt ;  not  to  think, 
but  to  accept  blindly  the  doctrines  of  the  Church,  lest 
you  should  end  in  sce^Jticism.  Counsels  of  cowardice 
and  faithlessness,  productive  of  that  false  sleep  of  the 
soul  which  is  ten  times  worse  than  scepticism,  which 
takes  from  man  1,he  activity  of  thinking,  of  doubtmg,  of 
concluding,  which  destroys  the  boundless  joy  of  relig- 
ious personality,  the  pleasure  of  consciously  willing,  of 
full  conviction,  to  be  a  follower  of  Christ,  a  man  at  one 
with  God.  Our  faith,  when  it  is  accepted  only  on  the 
word  of  others,  is  untried  and  weak.   It  has  the  strength 


198 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


of  a  castle  wlucli  has  never  been  attacked,  of  a  chain 
which  never  has  been  proved.  It  may  resist  the  trial, 
but  we  are  not  snre  about  it.  We  are  afraid  of  search, 
afraid  of  new  opinions,  afraid  of  thought,  lest  possibly 
we  lose  our  form  of  faith.  Every  infidel  objection  makes 
us  tremble,  every  new  discovery  in  science  is  a  terror. 
Take  away  the  old  form,  and  we  are  lost :  we  cry  out  that 
God  is  dead  and  Clirist  is  overthrown. 

In  reality,  we  have  no  faith,  no  religion,  no  God.  "We 
have  only  a  superstition,  a  set  of  oj^inions,  and,  instead 
of  a  living  God,  a  fetish. 

The  true  religious  life  comes  of  a  clear  realization  of 
our  distinct  personal  relation  to  God.  The  views  of 
society,  the  accredited  opinions  of  the  Church  on  relig- 
ion, the  true  man  does  not  despise :  he  seeks  to  under- 
stand them,  for  jierhai^s  they  may  assist  him  in  his 
endeavors;  but  he  does  not  follow  them  blindly:  he  jnits 
them  even  aside  altogether,  that  he  may  go  straiglit  to 
God,  and  find  God  for  himself,  and  as  a,  j^e/'so/i.  know  that 
God  is  his,  and  that  he  is  God's.  His  faith  is  secure, 
because  he  has  won  it  by  conquest  of  objections,  because 
he  has  reached  it  through  the  overthrow  of  doubt, 
because  he  has  j^i'oved  it  in  trial  and  found  it  strong. 
He  has  come  at  truth  by  j^ersonal  thought,  reflection,  by 
personal  struggle  against  falsehood,  through  the  2)assion 
and  effort  of  his  soul.  His  love  of  Christ  is  not  a  mere 
religious  j^hrase :  it  is  a  reality.  He  has  ajjplied  the 
jjrinciples  of  the  Redeemer's  life  and  words  to  his  own 
life,  to  the  movements  of  the  world,  as  tests  and  direc- 
tion in  the  hours  of  trial,  when  duties  clash  or  when 
decision  is  demanded ;  and  he  has  found  them  ansM'er 
to  the  call.    He  has  studied  the  SaA'iour's  character  and 


DEVOTION  TO  THE  CONVENTIONAL.  199 


nK'(lit;itL'<l  on  liis  life;  and  of  conviction  lie  has  chosen 
him  as  the  highest  object  of  his  worshi]),  as  the  ideal  to 
M'hich  he  aspires. 

Prayer  is  no  form  of  words  to  him :  he  has  known  and 
proved  its  power  to  bring  his  soul  into  blest  communion 
with  the  Highest.  He  does  not  hesitate  to  speak  the 
truth,  for  he  feels  tliat  he  is  insi^ired  of  God. 

Such  a  man's  religion  is  not  conventional,  has  no  fear, 
is  not  superstitious:  it  is  individual,  it  is  inwoven 
with  his  life,  2>:irt  of  his  l)eing;  nay,  it  is  his  being.  He 
is  consciously  at  one  with  God.  He  has  freely,  with  all 
the  faculties  of  his  humanity,  received  Christ  Jesus. 

Two  things,  then,  are  laid,  before  you  this  day:  con- 
ventional religion,  a  whited  sepulchre  ;  j^ersonal  religion, 
a  fair  temi)le  whose  sure  foundations  are  bound  together 
by  the  twisted  strength  of  the  innermost  fibres  of  the 
soul, —  a  religion  of  words  accejited  from  others,  which 
begins  in  self-deception  and  ends  in  blindness,  supersti- 
tion, and  the  terror  of  the  soul,  or  a  religion  at  one 
with  life,  begun  in  resolution,  continued  in  personal 
action  toward  Christ,  the  Ideal  of  the  soul,  and  ending 
in  the  conscious  rest  of  imion  with  God. 

Choose ;  and  may  God  grant  us  all  grace  to  choose 
that  which  makes  us  men,  not  the  pu|)])ets  of  opinion, — 
that  life  which  frees  us  from  the  slavery  of  following  the 
multitude,  and  makes  us  sons  of  God  through  Jesus 
Christ  our  Lord. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  SIG5^"S. 


1868. 

"  And  when  the  people  were  gathered  thick  together,  he  began  to 
say,  This  is  an  evil  generation  :  tliey  seek  a  sign  ;  and  there  shall  no 
sign  be  given  it  but  the  sign  of  Jonas  the  prophet."  —  Luke  xi.,  29. 

From  the  ancient  (lays  of  tlie  people  of  Israel,  ■when 
Moses,  knowmg  the  character  of  his  nation,  asked  of  God 
that  he  Avould  vouchsafe  to  him  a  sensible  sign  to  show 
as  proof  of  his  mission,  until  the  time  of  Christ,  Ave  find 
among  the  Jews  the  craving  for  signs  and  wonders. 

They  desired  material  proofs  for  spiritual  things,  they 
demanded  that  every  revelation  should  be  accredited  by 
miracles.  It  was  through  the  gate  of  the  senses  and 
under  the  guidance  of  wonder,  not  through  the  gate  of 
the  spirit  and  under  the  guidance  of  faith,  that  they 
entered  the  temj^le  of  Religion. 

Now,  this  was  absolutely  a  childish  position.  The 
child  is  the  scholar  of  the  senses,  but  it  is  a  disgrace  to  a 
man  to  be  their  slave.  The  child  may  believe  that  the 
moon  is  self-luminous, —  it  is  through  believing  the  error 
that  he  finds  out  its  erroneousness, —  but  it  is  ridiculous 
in  the  grown-up  man  who  has  examined  the  question  not 
to  say,  "  My  senses  are  wrong." 

It  is  spiritual  childishness  which  believes  that  a  doc- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  SIGNS. 


201 


trine  or  ;i  man's  life  are  true  becau.se  of  a  miracle.  The 
miracle  speaks  for  the  most  part  'x  the  senses,  and  the 
senses  can  tell  us  nothing  of  the  spiritual  world. 

It  is  spiritual  manliood  which  out  of  a  lieart  educated 
by  the  experience  arising  from  the  slow  rejection  of 
error  can  say  of  any  sjnritual  trutli,  "It  so,  it  must  be 
so.  I  have  the  witness  of  it  within ;  and,  though  a  thou- 
sand miracles  Avere  to  suggest  the  denial  of  it,  I  should 
cling  to  it  unswervingly." 

Now,  the  position  of  mind  exactly  opposite  to  this  M-as 
that  held  by  a  Large  number  of  the  common  Jcm's,  and 
apparently  by  the  greater  ])art  of  the  chief  men.  The 
latter  demanded  signs  of  Christ  as  proof  of  the  truth  of 
his  teaching :  the  former  displayed  an  absolutely  sensual 
craving  for  miracles.  And  yet  on  neither  of  these 
classes  did  the  miracles,  per  se,  produce  any  lasting 
effect.  The  Pharisees  confessed,  we  are  told,  the  reality 
of  the  miracle  of  the  raising  of  Lazarus,  and  then  imme- 
diately met  to  take  measures  to  put  Christ  to  death. 
The  common  people  were  so  little  im]»ressed  with  one 
miracle  that  they  immediately  demanded  another,  as  if 
the  first  had  had  no  meaning. 

This  is  the  plain  sjjirit  of  Fetishism,  or  the  worship  of 
sensible  wonders  without  any  knowledge  why  the  wor- 
ship is  given,  without  any  attempt  to  discover  why  the 
wonder  has  occurred. 

It  was  the  temptation  to  yield  to  this  ])assion  of  his 
time  and  to  employ  his  miraculous  i)ower  for  the  sake  of 
winning  the  favor  of  the  multitude,  or  for  ostentation,  or 
for  the  sake  of  establishing  his  kingdom  rapidly,  Avhich 
Christ  conquered  in  the  trial  called  that  of  tlie  ])innacle 
of  the  temple.    In  that  temptation  was  gathered  up  the 


202 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


whole  meaning  of  this  part  of  tlie  sjjirit  of  tlie  age;  and, 
in  conquering  it  at  the  outset  of  his  career,  lie  conquered 
it  for  liis  M-hole  life.  Again  and  again  it  met  him,  but  it 
met  him  in  vain.  Even  at  tlie  hist,  tlie  voice  of  this 
phase  of  the  spirit  of  the  world  mockeil  him  upon  the 
cross.  "  If  he  be  the  King  of  Israel,  let  him  now  come 
down  from  the  cross,  and  we  will  believe  liira."  They 
fancied,  even  tlien,  that  an  outward  sign  could  secure 
their  faith:  as  if  those  men  could  l^elie^-e,  who  were  blind 
to  the  wonder  of  love,  obedience,  and  martyrdom  for 
truth,  which,  greater  than  any  miracle,  was  exhibited 
before  their  eyes  on  Calvary. 

His  greatest  utterances,  where  all  was  great,  were 
spoken  in  the  spirit  contrary  to  this  religion  of  the 
senses.  He  threw  men  back  ujion  the  witness  of  their 
own  heart,  — "  They  that  are  of  the  truth  hear  my 
voice."  He  declared  that  his  true  folloAvers  know  him 
by  intuition, —  "My  sheep  know  my  Aoice,  and  they 
follow  me."  He  made  eternal  life  consist,  not  in  the 
blind  faith  which  came  and  went  with  the  increase  and 
cessation  of  miracle,  but  in  the  faith  which  recognized 
him  as  the  Son  of  God ;  in  the  s])iritual  union  which 
he  expressed  in  the  words,  "He  that  eateth  my  tlesh 
and  (Irinketh  my  blood  dwelletli  in  me,  and  I  in  him." 
God,  in  his  view,  was  not  the  Avonder-worker  of  the  Old 
Testament,  but  a  Spirit  Avho  demanded  a  spiritual  wor- 
ship arising  out  of  a  deej)  conviction  of  his  necessity  to 
the  soul.  "God  is  a  spirit,  and  they  that  worship  him 
must  worship  him  in  spirit  and  in  truth."  He  swept 
away  with  fiery  and  pregnant  words  all  the  jugglery  of 
superstitious  ceremonial  with  which  men  had  overloaded 
the  simple  idea  of  God;  and  he  called  them  back  to 


THE  KELIGION  OF  SIGNS. 


203 


nntural  life  and  feeling,  to  childlike  trust  in  a  Father 
ever  near  to  tliem,  to  a  simple  and  pure  morality.  But, 
at  the  same  time,  he  presented  to  their  effort  a  grand 
ideal,  which,  though  it  seemed  too  high  for  human 
nature,  has  yet  stirred  and  exalted  men  as  no  other 
ideal  has  ever  done, —  "Be  ye  therefore  perfect,  even  as 
your  Father  in  heaven  was  jierfect." 

It  A\  as  all  too  high,  too  simple,  too  spiritual,  to  please 
the  Jewish  taste.  It  is  true  lie  condescended  in  a  cer- 
tain degree  to  their  weakness  of  faith ;  and  he  did  many 
mighty  Avorks,  partly  because  he  felt  that  some  men 
must  be  first  attracted  through  the  senses,  and  j^artly, 
as  in  the  case  of  Nathanael,  in  order  to  confirm  a  waver- 
ing faith.  But,  on  the  other  hand,  lie  always  refused  to 
do  any  miracle  without  an  adequate  motive.  Where  the 
miracle  could  establish  no  principle,  where  it  was  not 
preceded  by  faith,  or  where  it  did  not  teach  a  universal 
lesson,  Christ  would  not  pander  to  the  Jewish  craving 
for  a  sign.  This  was  his  stern  answer,  "  An  evil  and 
adulterous  generation  seeketh  after  a  sign.  There  shall 
no  sign  be  given  it,"  etc. 

Stung  with  his  righteous  scorn  of  their  passion  for  the 
visible,  they  slew  him,  and  signed  in  his  death  the  war- 
rant of  their  nation's  ruin. 

Now,  I  have  been  endeavoring  to  show  that  the  spirit 
of  the  world  in  its  several  developments,  which  killed 
Christ,  is  identical  with  the  spirit  Avhich  in  every  nation 
has  neglected,  enfeebled,  and  persecuted  all  individu- 
ality, originality,  or  genius,  not  only  in  religion,  but  in 
philosophy,  poetry,  art,  and  science.  We  have  seqn  this 
in  the  case  of  the  Avorship  of  the  conventional  and  of 
the  worship  of  gain,  ostentation,  and  comfort.    We  have 


\ 


204 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


seen  how  these  phases  of  the  spirit  of  the  world  hare 
corrupted,  ruined,  and  killed  the  life  of  men  wlio  rose 
abov .  the  common  standard.  I  do  not  say  that  this 
result  is  due  altogether  to  the  spirit  of  the  world :  much 
is  due  to  the  weakness  of  the  men  themselves ;  hut  we 
who  are  not  gifted  men  have  no  idea  of  the  suhtlety 
and  awful  force  of  the  temptations  of  the  world  to  men 
of  genius ;  Ave,  who  have  not  the  strength  nor  the  weak- 
ness of  genius,  can  scarcely  conceive  how  cruel  and 
how  debasing  the  influence  of  the  world  may  be,  when 
it  masters  that  strength  or  flatters  that  weakness  into 
folly. 

The  phase  of  the  spirit  of  the  world  of  which  we 
sjjeak  to-day  is  that  of  devotion  to  signs  and  wonders. 

Men  of  genius  are  themselves  signs  and  wonders  in 
the  Avorld.  How  does  tlie  world  treat  them?  It  does 
not  help  tliem,  it  does  not  bring  out  what  is  best  in 
them :  it  makes  a  show  of  them,  and  then  dismisses 
them  Avith  a  sigh  of  weariness.  They  are  taken  up  and 
flattered  till  all  their  strength  is  drained  away.  They 
are  polished  down  till  all  the  angles  which  made  them 
of  use,  which  jarred  upon  the  splendid  dulness  or  irri- 
tated into  some  life  the  lazy  indifference  of  common 
society,  are  smoothed  away;  and  the  man  offends  no 
more  by  originality.  It  fills  one  with  pity  and  anger 
to  think  how  many,  who  might  have  been  Samsons  and 
have  smitten  our  modern  Philistinism  to  its  death,  have 
been  ensnared  by  the  Delilah  of  fashionable  society, 
and  set,  "  shorn  of  their  puissant  locks,"  to  work  in  the 
prison  and  to  make  sport  for  the  Philistines.  XVe  mourn, 
and  Avith  just  cause,  the  loss  of  many  Avho,  born  to  be 
kings,  have  sunk  into  willing  slaves. 


THE  EELIGION  OF  SIGNS. 


205 


Look  at  tlic  Avay  in  wliich  this  devotion  to  signs  and 
wonders  in  the  Avorld  acts  now  npon  tlie  literature  of  the 
country.  In  that  sphere,  it  is  represented  by  a  craving 
for  "  sensationalism,"  which  results  in  intellectual  sloth. 
Men  ask  for  books  which  excite,  but  give  no  trouble. 
They  h;ive  not  time,  they  say,  to  read  slowly,  much  less 
to  read  a  book  twice  o^^er.  A  book  genuinely  thought 
out,  but  not  brilliant,  in  which  the  experience  of  a  life  of 
intellectual  work  is  concentrated,  has  scarcely  a  chance 
of  success.  The  2)ublic  are  too  indolent  to  read  even  a 
thoughtful  review  of  such  a  book,  unless  it  be  written  in 
sparkling  style  and  flavored  with  a  spice  of  sensation. 
Except  they  read  signs  and  Avonders,  they  will  not  read 
at  all.  What  are  the  consequences?  Men  of  thought, 
who  are  strong  of  will  and  believe  in  themselves,  refuse 
to  submit  to  this  tyrannical  cry  for  signs.  They  persist 
in  writing  books  of  worth  and  weight ;  but  they  do  it 
in  a  kind  of  despair,  and  their  work  suffers  from  the 
dogged  dulness  Avhich  despair  creates.  Unlistened  to 
and  hojDeless,  they  cannot  write  with  the  joy  which  en- 
livens exjjression,  with  the  uplifting  sense  of  a  public 
sympathy. 

Men  of  thought,  who  are  weak  of  Avill,  and  whose 
self-confidence  depends  upon  tlie  public  voice,  write  one 
book  of  i^ower,  and  then  surrender  their  high  mission. 
They  enter  on  the  career  which  demoralizes  the  finer 
powers  of  genius, —  the  career  of  the  reviewer  and  the 
magazine  contributor,  —  and  too  often  end  by  drifting 
into  the  mere  sensationalist,  writhig  a  book  which,  like 
an  annual,  grows,  blooms,  and  dies  in  a  season.  They 
strain  after  brilliancy, —  not  brilliancy  for  its  own  sake, 
but  brilliancy  for  the  sake  of  show  or  favor.    They  fall 


206 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


into  the  very  temptation  wliieli  Clirist  resisted  in  the 
case  of  miracles. 

I  might  illustrate  the  subject  in  other  spheres  than 
the  sj)here  of  literature;  but  enough  has  been  said  to 
sliow  the  operation  upon  men  of  genius  of  this  element 
of  the  spirit  of  the  •\vorld,  which  as  a  craving  for  signs 
and  wonders  among  the  Jews  hurried  the  Saviour  to  the 
cross. 

Now,  a  society  tainted  with  the  diseased  jiassion  for 
this  class  of  writing  is  drifting  away  from  tliat  temjier 
of  mind  which  can  frankly  accej)!  Christ  Jesus ;  for  his 
is  not  the  life  which  can  satisfy  the  sensationalist. 

Separate  it  from  the  moral  glory,  the  spiritual  beauty, 
which  rose  from  it  like  a  sea  of  light  out  of  inner  foun- 
tains, and  it  is  a  common  life  enough.  Uneventful  for 
thirty  years,  the  story  of  it,  even  in  the  midst  of  its 
miracles,  is  marked  by  nothing  especially  exciting.  It 
was  in  itself  eminently  natural,  unartificial,  deep,  cool, 
and  quiet  as  a  garden  Avell,  passed  by  preference  among 
rustic,  uneducated  men,  amid  the  holy  serenity  of  the 
mountain  and  the  desert,  among  the  gracious  simijlici- 
ties  of  natural  beauty,  beside  the  ripple  of  the  lake,  upon 
the  grass-grown  hill, —  seeking  even  at  Jerusalem  refuge 
from  the  noise  and  passion  of  the  city  in  the  peaceful 
village  of  Bethany  or  among  the  shadows  of  the  silent 
Garden  of  Gethsemane. 

"We  cannot  understand  it,  we  cannot  understand  him, 
we  cannot  enter  into  the  profound  simplicity  and  truth 
of  his  teaching,  if  we  have  habituated  our  mind  to 
morbid  excitement,  our  moral  sense  to  a  continual  a  Io- 
lation  of  it  in  both  French  and  English  novels,  and  our 
emotions  to  a  mental  hysteria  Avhich  destroys  the  will. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  SIGNS. 


207 


This  may  seem  a  slight  evil  ;  Init  it  is  more  tliaii  we 
imagine.  We  should  look  Avitli  i'l'ar  u])oii  the  growtli 
of  this  temper  in  English  society:  it  is  denaturalizing 
it.  It  renders  botli  mind  and  lieart  corrupt.  It  will 
end  by  making  the  life  corrvipt  and  society  impure.  Sen- 
sationalism in  literature  is  closely  coimected  with  sensu- 
ality in  society. 

Again,  take  in  the  jn-eseut  time,  as  another  form  of 
the  Jewish  ])assion  for  signs  and  wonders,  tiie  existence 
among  us  of  men  and  A\'omen  with  a  jiassion  for  the  false 
supernatural.  The  true  supernatural  is  not  the  miracu- 
lous, but  the  purely  si)iritual ;  not  the  manifestation  of 
things  which  astonish  the  senses,  Imt  the  revelation  of 
things  which  ennoble  the  spirit.  In  neither  of  these 
ways  are  the  things  Avitli  which  we  have  been  lately 
favored  truly  supernatural.  They  are  abundantly  ma- 
terial, and  they  do  not  ennoble.  The  last  appearance  of 
the  chief  prophet  has  not  been  characterized  by  a  surplus 
of  spirituality. 

Every  day,  however,  fewer  persons  are  likely  to  be 
swept  away  by  this  spiritual  quackery  ;  for,  as  the  ozone 
of  scientific  knowledge  is  added  to  our  social  atmosi)]iere, 
these  corrupt  growtlis  dwindle  and  die.  But  it  is  worth 
while  j^erhaps  to  say  that  they  enfeeble  tlie  intellect  and 
do  harm  to  Christianity.  No  man  can  long  float  in  the 
misty  region  of  pale  speculation  in  which  these  exhibi- 
tions involve  him, —  speculation  which  starts  from  no 
fixed  point  and  aims  at  nothing, —  nor  be  tossed  about 
by  the  inconsequence  of  the  so-called  phenomena,  with- 
out feeling  his  intellect  ebbing  away  and  its  manliness 
departing.  They  render  the  reason  a  useless  part  of  our 
being. 


208 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


So  doiiio;,  they  do  evil  to  Cliristianity ;  for  to  conceive 
Christianity  grandly,  to  expound  it  nobly,  to  develop  it 
within  oiir  own  souls  as  fnlly  as  ])Ossible,  and  to  woi'k 
for  its  perfect  kingdom,  we  need  to  xniite  to  its  spiritual 
power  within  ns  "the  ]>ower  of  a  free,  vigorous,  manly, 
and  well-cultured  intellect."  We  need  for  the  work  of 
Christ,  not  only  sjiiritual  life  as  the  first  thing,  but  in- 
tellectual light  as  the  second. 

Again,  one  of  the  greatest  evils  which  arise  from 
the  encouragement  of  charlatanry  of  this  kind  in  con- 
nection with  religion  —  and  it  is  so  connected  —  is  that 
it  j^rotracts  the  period  when  the  work  of  science  and 
religion,  by  consent  of  their  several  professors,  Avill  ad- 
vance together.  It  causes  scientific  men  to  think  that 
everything  connected  Avitli  religion  is  inimical  to  the 
methods  of  science :  it  intensifies  their  opposition  to  the 
thought  of  the  supernatural  by  setting  before  them  a 
false  supernaturalism.  It  throws  contempt  upon  and 
degrades  the  notion  of  a  spiritual  world.  It  increases  a 
credulity  on  the  one  hand  which  leads  to  gross  supersti- 
tion, it  increases  an  unbelief  on  the  other  which  leads  to 
crross  materialism.  The  extremes  of  the  two  sides  are 
set  into  stronger  o])position ;  and,  in  the  noise  which  the 
extreme  parties  make,  the  voices  of  Aviser  men  remain 
unheard. 

One  element  of  good  hope,  however,  attends  its  ap- 
pearance among  us.  The  sjjirit  in  society  which  it  feeds 
has  almost  always,  in  conjunction  with  a  spirit  of  unbe- 
lief with  which  it  is  connected,  preceded  a  revolution  of 
thought.  It  was  so  before  the  teaching  of  Christianity. 
It  was  so  before  the  rise  of  the  Reformation.  It  was  so 
before  the  outburst  of  new  ideas  which  gave  force  to  the 
early  days  of  the  French  Revolution. 


THE  RELIGION  OF  SIGNS. 


209 


I  liave  hope  that  this  blhid  confusion,  tliis  tossing 
together  of  the  elements  of  credulity  and  unbelief,  will 
create,  in  a  reaction  from  them,  a  rational  and  liberal 
faith. 

Analogous  to  this  is  the  endeavor  to  awake  and  excite 
religious  sensibility  either  by  the  overwrought  fervor  of 
the  revivalist,  producing  an  hysterical  excitement  which 
is  mistaken  for  a  spiritual  manifestation,  or  by  the  sen- 
sual imin-essions  made  by  the  lights,  incense,  music, 
color,  and  all  the  paraphernalia  of  the  ritualists.  I  do 
not  deny  the  real  enthusiasm,  however  cruelly  mistaken 
in  its  mode  of  action,  nor  the  good  wliich  many  of  the 
revivalists  have  done ;  nor  the  good  and  the  enthusiasm 
which  follow  the  efforts  of  the  ritualist,  but  in  a  certain 
degree  they  both  agree  in  this, —  they  try  to  produce 
spirituality  from  without.  They  make  use  of  stimulants 
which  are  unnatural  in  relation  to  the  spirit,  though 
natural  in  their  relation  to  the  body. 

Precisely  the  same  thing  is  done  by  those  who  hunt 
after  exciting  sermons,  who  imagine  they  rejiair  the 
ravages  of  the  devotion  of  six  days  to  the  world  by  an 
emotional  impression  on  Sunday  as  transient  as  the 
morning  dew ;  who  mistake  a  thrill  of  intellectual  excite- 
ment for  a  spiritual  conviction,  a  glow  of  aspiration  for 
a  religious  act,  and  pleasure  in  a  sermon  for  the  will  to 
concjuer  evil. 

Now,  all  these  things  are,  under  one  form  or  another, 
the  jiroducts  of  the  same  sjnrit  which  in  the  days  of 
Christ  sought  for  signs  and  wonders. 

Tlie  melancholy  superstition  which  is  called  so  iron- 
ically spiritualism  unfits  its  devoted  votaries  for  their 
daily  work.    Some  play  with  it,  and  it  does  them  little 


210 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


h:\vm ;  but  others,  embarking  in  it  with  energy,  get  into 
an  excited,  inoperative,  unhealthy  condition,  in  which  a 
quiet  Christian  life  becomes  all  but  impossible,  in  wliich 
duty  becomes  a  burden  if  it  separate  them  from  their 
experiments,  in  which  it  seems  better  to  sit  at  a  table 
slothfully  waiting  for  a  spiritual  communicatit)n  than  to 
go  with  Christ  into  the  middle  of  the  arena  of  life,  and 
do  our  duty  there  against  the  evil.  It  is  there,  in  faith- 
ful following  of  him,  tliat  we  sluill  have  sitiritual  com- 
munications;  it  is  there,  in  self-sacrificing  action,  that 
we  shall  feel  inspired  by  God  to  act  and  speak;  it  is 
there  that  we  shall  realize  our  communication  with  the 
host  of  all  great  spirits,  in  enduring  like  them  all  things 
for  the  truth  ;  it  is  there,  by  faithful  prayer  and  resist- 
ance to  temptation,  by  the  warfare  against  sin  within 
and  wrong  without,  that  our  hearts  will  begin  to  beat 
with  the  excitement  which  ennobles  and  the  enthusiasm 
which  does  not  decay ;  it  is  there,  loving  our  Saviour's 
spirit  above  all  things  and  aspiring  to  reach  his  divine 
perfection,  that  we  shall  enter  into  the  true  spiritual 
world,  and  feel,  not  the  miserable  presences  of  beings 
which,  on  the  impossible  supposition  of  their  existence, 
it  is  a  disgrace  to  associate  witli,  but  the  very  presence 
of  tlie  Spirit  of  God  within  us ;  hear,  not  a  futile  and 
laborious  noise,  but  the  voice  of  God  liimself,  saying  to 
us,  after  the  conquest  of  sin  or  tlie  performance  of  duty 
in  liis  strength,  "  Well  done,  good  and  faitliful  servant." 

And  as  to  the  attempts  of  revivalists  or  ritualists  to 
influence  the  spirit  tlirough  the  flesh,  tliere  is  this  i)lain 
evil :  that  all  stimulants  of  this  character  produce  each 
their  own  peculiar  reaction,  and  are  followed  in  the 
reaction  by  exhaustion.    Then  the  passionate  emotion 


THE  RELIGION  OP  SIGNS. 


211 


must  be  worked  up  again  by  another  and  a  fiercer  ad- 
dress, or  the  aesthetic  impression  which  produced  the 
thrill  must  be  again  received,  but  this  time  by  means 
of  a  more  exciting  service.  It  follows,  then,  that  the 
exhaustion  of  reaction  is  greater,  since  the  stimulant  has 
been  more  violent.  So  it  proceeds,  till  at  last  the  limit 
of  stimulation  has  been  reached  and  the  excitement  can 
be  aroused  no  more.  Only  the  exhaustion  remains,  the 
craving  is  still  there ;  and  the  worn-out  votaries  of  the 
religion  of  tlie  nerves  and  the  senses  turn  back,  unable 
to  do  without  their  thrilling  sensations,  to  the  old  excite- 
ments, and  go  back  in  the  case  of  revivalism  to  sin,  in 
the  case  of  ritualism  to  the  world. 

Of  course,  we  only  speak  of  tendencies,  not  of  persons. 
It  would  be  absurd  to  deny  that  many  faithful  men 
have  been  made  by  revivalism.  It  would  be  far  more 
absurd  to  deny  that  there  are  thousands  of  devoted  men 
who  attach  a  living  meaning  to  ritualistic  observances, 
and  to  whom  these  things  are  not  a  form  without  a 
spirit,  but  the  natural  expression,  and  therefore  to  them 
the  right  expression,  of  spiritual  feelings,  who  use  them 
not  to  create  from  without,  but  to  embody  from  within, 
their  inner  life  with  God. 

But,  making  this  allowance,  it  seems  clear  that  this 
form  of  religious  life  is  not  the  highest  nor  the  truest 
form  of  the  Christian  life.  It  encourages  that  temper 
of  mind  which  demands  signs  and  wonders  as  proofs  and 
supports  of  faith.  It  is  in  bondage  to  ceremonies :  it  is 
against  our  full  freedom  in  Christ  Jesus.  It  says  to  men, 
in  principle,  "Except  ye  be  circumcised,  Christ  shall 
profit  you  nothing."  It  denies  the  equal  holiness  of  all 
times,  of  all  places,  to  the  Christian  heart,  by  asserting 


212 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


the  especial  holiness  of  certain  times  and  certain  places. 
It  places  the  priest  between  us  ajid  God  as  a  necessary- 
means,  whereby  alone  we  may  hold  communication  with 
God.  It  asserts  the  absolute  necessity  of  certain  sym- 
bolic observances  for  the  reception  of  any  higher  spirit- 
ual grace  from  God. 

This  is  not  the  purity  and  simplicity  of  Christianity. 
It  is  a  rehabilitation  of  those  elements  in  Judaism  which 
Christ  attacked  and  overthrew.  It  is  opposed  to  the 
whole  spirit  of  his  teaching.  He  removed  the  barriers 
of  ceremonies,  of  sacrifices,  of  authority,  of  localized  and 
exclusive  sanctities ;  and  he  brought  the  heart  of  each 
man  into  direct  communion  with  the  Heavenly  Father. 
As  to  a  priesthood,  and  its  pretensions  to  interfere  be- 
tween us  and  God,  Christ  swept  it  away  with  every 
word  and  action  of  his  life,  and  by  uniting  the  individual 
soul  to  God  made  every  man  his  own  priest,  and  the 
daily  spiritual  offering  of  each  man's  love  in  feeling  and 
in  action  the  acceptable  sacrifice.  "  If  any  man  love  me, 
he  will  keep  my  words ;  and  my  Father  will  love  him, 
and  we  will  come  to  him,  and  make  our  abode  with 
him." 

There  is  the  charter  of  our  freedom;  and  there  is  not 
a  woi'd  in  it  of  the  necessity  of  God's  grace  coming  to  us 
filtered  through  the  medium  of  a  priest,  or  a  ceremony, 
or  a  sacrament,  or  a  symbol. 

Blessed  is  he,  in  these  times  of  devotion  to  the  sensi- 
ble, who  can  behold  the  obedience  and  the  deep  self- 
sacrifice  of  the  Saviour's  life  and  death ;  Avho  can  watch, 
unfolding  in  him,  perfect  love,  undaunted  courage,  stain- 
less purity,  the  simple  nobleness  of  truth,  the  union  of 
mercy  and   justice,  and,  recognizing  that  as  God  in 


THE  EELIGION  OF  SIGNS. 


213 


humanity,  throw  liiinself  upon  it  in  a  pure  passion  of 
love,  and  with  a  solemn  force  of  faith,  and  clasp  the  per- 
fect man  to  his  heart  as  his  unique  jjossession,  as  his 
living  impulse,  as  his  Redeemer,  in  whose  love  his  sin 
is  drowned,  his  lower  self  annihilated. 

Signs,  wonders,  excitements,  observances,  I  need  them 
not  to  make  me  trust  in  thee.  I  feel  thy  power  in  my 
heart,  thy  presence  moving  in  my  life.  I  hear  thy 
voice :  it  is  enough,  my  spirit  knows  its  sound,  claims  it 
as  the  voice  of  the  rightful  Master  of  my  being.  I  have 
not  seen  ;  but,  O  my  Saviour !  I  have  felt^  and  I  believe. 


THE  I^^ATURAMESS  OF  GOD'S 
JUDGMEI^TS. 

1867. 

"  And  Jesus  answering  said  unto  them,  Suppose  ye  that  these 
Galileans  were  sinners  above  all  the  Galileans,  because  they  suffered 
such  things  1  I  tell  you,  Nay :  but,  except  ye  repent,  ye  shall  all  like- 
wise perish.  Or  those  eighteen  upon  whom  the  tower  in  Siloam  fell, 
and  slew  them,  think  ye  that  they  were  sinners  above  all  men  that 
dwelt  in  Jerusalem  ?  "  —  Luke  xiii.,  2—4. 

Last  year,  during  the  prevalence  of  the  cholera,  we 
spoke  of  it  from  this  place,  and  of  the  lesson.s  Avhich  it 
taught  us.  We  then  laid  down  the  principle  that  all 
the  so-called  judgments  of  God  were  the  natural  results 
of  violation  of  laws,  and  as  such  always  unarbitrary. 

The  principle  is  a  common  one,  but  it  requii-es  to  be 
stated  and  restated  continually,  and  especially  so  from 
the  pulpit.  First,  because  it  is  explicitly  or  implicitly 
denied  by  a  large  number  of  religious  persons,  to  the 
great  detriment,  I  believe,  of  religion ;  and,  secondly, 
because,  in  establishing  it  firmly,  we  get  rid  of  nearly  all 
that  sets  scientific  men  in  opposition  to  religious  men. 

Now,  the  princijjle  that  every  judgment  of  God  is  con- 
nected, in  the  way  of  ordinary  cause  and  effect,  with  the 
sin  or  error  therein  condemned,  destroys  at  once  the 
notion  that  plague  or  famine  are  judgments  upon  us  for 


NATURALNESS  OF  GOD's  JUDGMENTS. 


215 


infidelity  or  rationalisiii  or  sabbatli-breakiiig,  or  our 
private  sins;  for  there  is  plainly  no  natural  connection 
between  the  alleged  sin  and  the  alleged  j)unishment. 
For  e\'amj)le,  the  town  which  takes  due  sanitary  precau- 
tions may  refuse  to  give  one  penny  to  missions,  but  it 
will  not  be  visited  by  a  virulent  outbreak  of  cholera. 
The  town  which  takes  no  sanitary  precautions,  but  gives 
£10,000  a  year  to  missions,  will,  in  spite  of  its  Chris- 
tian generosity,  become  a  victim  to  the  e])idemic.  The 
lightning  will  strike  the  ship  of  the  good  man  who 
chooses  to  sail  without  a  lightning-conductor,  it  will 
spare  the  ship  of  the  atheist  and  the  blasphemer  who 
provides  hhnself  with  the  protecting-rod.  The  cattle 
plague  will  not  touch  the  cattle  of  the  most  active 
Roman  Catholic  in  England,  if  his  quarantine  is  exclu- 
sive enough;  while  it  will  destroy  all  the  cows  of  the 
best  Protestant  in  the  country,  if  he  be  careless  of  their 
isolation.  We  may  sin  as  much  as  we  please  in  our  own 
jjersons,  but  we  shall  escape  cholera  as  much  as  we  shall 
escape  famine,  if  we  discover  the  source  of  contagion  and 
ffuard  ajjainst  it. 

There  is,  then,  alwjiys  a  natural  connection  between 
the  sin  and  the  punishment;  and  the  punishment  points 
out  its  own  cause.  To  follow  the  guiding  of  its  finger 
is  to  discover  the  evil,  and,  when  discovered,  to  rectify 
it.  But  Ave  assume  a  supernatural  cause,  and  the  evil 
remains  hidden  from  us.  There  is  no  hope  of  success 
till  Ave  act  u]ion  the  principle  Avhich  is  here  laid  down. 

It  is  my  intention  this  morning  to  show  the  truth  of 
this  principle  in  other  spheres  than  that  of  epidemic 
disease.  If  Ave  can  manifest  its  uniA'ersality,  Ave  go  far 
to  proA'^e  its  truth.  Take  as  the  first  illustration  the 
case  of  the  Moral  LaAV. 


216 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


The  Ten  Commandments  ajjjiear  at  first  siglit  to  be 
arbitrary  rules  of  conduct.  Why  shotild  we  not  kill  a 
man  wlien  he  has  injured  us?  Why  should  we  not  steal 
when  we  are  in  want  ?  Many  a  savage  community  has 
argued  in  this  way,  and  we  do  not  want  for  isolated  in- 
stances of  the  same  feeling  in  civilized  societies.  But, 
as  civilization  increased,  the  commands  of  the  Decalogue 
were  felt  to  be  right,  not  only  because  they  were  re- 
echoed by  an  inward  voice,  but  also  because  they  were 
proved  to  be  necessary  for  the  ]>rogress  of  humanity. 
They  were  commanded,  then,  not  only  because  of  their 
agreement  to  eternal  right,  but  also  because  of  their  ne- 
cessity. Some  of  them  were  in  very  early  times  clearly 
seen  as  needful, —  the  sacredness  of  an  oath,  the  sacred- 
ness  of  human  life,  the  sacredness  of  ])ro|)erty.  On  the 
other  hand,  it  has  taken  centuries  to  show  that  poly- 
theism is  a  destructive  element  to  national  greatness. 
Others  Avere  not  so  clearly  seen  to  be  just.  "Thou  shalt 
not  covet"  seemed  to  make  a  great  deal  out  of  nothing; 
but  experience  taught  men,  though  slowly,  that  inor- 
dinate desire  for  the  goods  of  another  was  the  most 
fruitful  source  of  violation  of  social  riglits.  Again,  to 
reconcile  the  fourtli  commandment  with  a  natural  feel- 
ing of  right  has  been  a  puzzle  to  many.  But  men  saw, 
as  the  labor  of  the  world  increased,  the  naturalness  of  a 
day  of  rest  and  its  necessity  for  human  nature.  It  was 
seen  to  be  commanded,  not  of  caprice  on  the  jmrt  of 
God,  but  because  it  was  needful  for  humanity.  The 
commandments  have  force,  therefore,  not  because  they 
are  commanded  by  a  God  of  power,  but  because  they  are 
either  needful  for,  or  natural  to,  human  nature. 

Nor  is  the  judgment  which  follows  on  their  violation 


NATURALNESS  OF  GOD's  JUDGMENTS.  217 


any  more  arbitrary  tliaii  the  laws  tlieui.selves.  As  they 
have  their  root  in  our  nature,  so  they  have  their  pun- 
ishment in  our  nature.  Violate  a  moral  law,  and  our 
constitution  2)rotests  through  our  conscience.  Sorrow 
awakes,  remorse  follows ;  and  remorse  is  felt  in  itself  to 
be  the  mark  of  separation  from  God.  Tlie  punishment 
is  not  arbitrary,  but  natural.  Moreover,  each  particular 
violation  of  the  moral  law  has  its  own  proper  judgment. 
The  man  who  is  dishonest  in  one  branch  of  his  life  soon 
feels  dishonesty  —  not  impurity,  not  anytliing  else  but 
dishonesty  —  creep  through  his  whole  life  and  enter  into 
all  his  actions.  Impurity  has  its  own  punishment,  and 
that  is  increasing  corruption  of  lieart.  Eaoli  sin  has  its 
own  judgment,  and  not  another's  ;  and  the  judgment  is 
so  naturally  linked  to  the  sin  that  it  jjoints  out  unmis- 
takably what  the  particular  sin  is  which  is  j>unished. 
The  moral  pain  calls  attention  to  the  moral  disease.  It 
is  the  voice  of  God  saying:  "  There,  in  that  thing  you 
are  wrong,  my  child.  Do  not  do  it  again,  do  the  very 
opposite." 

Take,  again,  the  intellectual  jjart  of  man.  The  neces- 
sities for  intellectual  progress  are  attention,  persever- 
ance, practice.  Refuse  to  submit  to  these  laws,  and  you 
are  punislied  by  loss  of  memory  or  inactivity  of  memory, 
by  failure  in  your  work  or  by  inability  to  think  and  act 
quickly  at  the  ])ro))er  moment.  The  intellectual  jyunisli- 
ments  follow  as  naturally  uj)on  violation  of  tlie  laws  of 
tlie  intellect  as  sickness  does  on  violation  of  the  laws  of 
healtli,  and  they  })oint  out  as  clearly  their  causes  as 
trembling  nerves  point  out  their  cause  in  the  indulgence 
of  the  drunkard. 

Again,  take  what  may  be  called  national  laws.  These 


218 


TAITH  AND  TUEEDOM. 


have  Ijeoii,  as  it  were,  codified  by  tlie  Jcwisli  jirophets. 
They  were  men  whose  holiness  brought  them  near  to 
God,  and  gave  them  insiglit  into  the  diseases  of  nations. 
They  saw  clearly  the  natural  result  of  these  diseases,  and 
they  jiroclaimed  it  to  the  world.  They  looked  on  Sama- 
ria, and  saw  there  a  corrupt  aristocracy,  failing  jiatriot- 
ism,  opjiression  of  the  poor,  falsification  of  justice,  and 
they  said,  God  will  judge  this  city,  and  it  shall  be  over- 
thrown by  Assyria.  Well,  was  that  an  arbitrary  judg- 
ment? It  was  of  God;  but  given  a  jiowerful  neighbor, 
and  a  divided  peojile  in  which  the  real  fighting  and 
working  class  has  been  cruslied,  enslaved,  and  unjustly 
treated,  and  an  enervateil,  lazy,  ])leasure-'consumed  up- 
I^er  class,  and  what  is  tlie  natural  result?  Why,  that 
very  thing  which  the  proj^hets  called  God's  judgment. 
God's  judgment  w^as  the  natural  result  of  the  violation 
of  the  first  of  national  laws, —  even-handed  justice  to  all 
parties  in  the  State.  The  same  jjrinciple  is  true  in  a 
thousand  instances  in  history:  the  national  judgments 
of  war,  revolution,  pestilence,  famine,  are  the  direct  re- 
sults of  the  violation  by  nations  of  certain  plain  laws 
which  have  become  clear  liy  exiiorience.  Unfortunately, 
men  took  them  to  mean  a  su2)ernatural  exjiression  of 
God's  anger,  instead  of  looking  for  their  natural  causes. 
It  is  this  notion  of  God  not  being  a  God  of  order,  but  a 
God  Avho  interferes  capriciously  with  the  course  of  soci- 
ety, which  has  made  the  advance  of  the  world  so  slow, 
and  made  so  many  of  his  judgments  useless.  For  these 
judgments  come  to  teach  nations  what  is  wrong  in 
them  ;  and  the  judgments  must  come  again  and  again, 
while  the  wrong  thing  is  there.  It  is  slow  work  teach- 
ing blind  men  ;  but  God  does  not  si)are  trouble,  and  the 


NATURALNESS  OF  GOD's  JUDGMENTS. 


219 


laws  of  the  universe  cannot  be  bouglit  off  by  jirayer. 
There  is  but  one  way  of  making  tliem  kind,  and  tliat  is 
by  getting  on  their  side.  We  find  them  out  by  punish- 
ment, as  a  child  finds  out  that  he  must  not  touch  fire  by 
being  burnt.  Look  at  slavery.  It  was  not  2>lainlj'  for- 
bidden, l)ut  no  nation  practised  it  Avithout  l>aying  dearly 
for  it.  It  devoured,  like  a  slow  disease,  national  ])ros- 
2)erity  and  U2)rightness.  It  was  not  so  deadly  to  the 
earlier  nations  as  it  has  been  to  the  Southern  States ;  but 
then  ancient  shivery  was  not  so  bad  as  American  slav- 
ery. Ancient  slavery  had  no  vast  breeding  system.  Its 
oppression  was  more  cruel,  but  it  was  not  "  so  degrad- 
ing, so  systematic,  and  so  unrelenting."  The  slave  had 
hope,  had  a  chance  of  liberty,  could  hold  some  property, 
could  receiA^e  some  education  :  none  of  these  things  alle- 
viated slavery  in  America.  Wherever  it  has  prevailed 
in  modern  times,  it  has  corroded  family  life,  degraded 
national  honor,-  and  reduced  flourishing  lands  to  wil- 
dernesses. The  Southern  States  would  not  learn  that 
lesson  from  history.  They  Avere  judged  and  sentenced 
by  God,  But  their  defeat  was  the  natural  result  of 
their  clinging  to  slavery.  They  were  destitute  of  men 
and  of  means  to  fight  the  North.  They  had  no  middle 
class,  no  working-men  class,  they  had  no  manufactories, 
scarcely  any  of  the  natural  Avealth  of  their  States  was 
Avorked,  A'ast  tracts  of  once  productive  land  Avere  ex- 
hausted. rioAV  could  the  Southerners  succeed  Avhen  all 
the  vast  resources  of  the  North,  supported  l)y  a  spiritual 
idea,  Avere  brought  to  bear  upon  them?  The  result 
could  not  be  doubted  for  a  moment.  It  Avas  God's  judg- 
ment, but  it  Avas  naturally  Avorked  out. 

The  conclusion  I  draw  fn^m  this  is  that  all  national 
jiidgmoits  of  God  come  ahovt  vat /irall i/. 


220 


FAITH  AND  FIIEEDOM. 


But  there  are  certain  judgments  mentioned  in  the 
Bible  wliich  seem  to  be  supernatural, —  the  destruction 
of  Sodom,  of  Sennacherib's  army,  of  the  Egyptians  in 
the  Red  Sea,  the  plagues  sent  ui^on  the  Israelites,  and 
others.  These  are  the  difficulty.  How  shall  we  explain 
them  ?  or  shall  we  seek  to  ex])lain  them  at  all  ?  First, 
we  must  remember  that  the  writers  had  not  the  knowl- 
edge capable  of  explaining  them,  that  nature  to  them 
was  an  insoluble  mystery.  They  naturally,  then,  re- 
ferred these  things  to  a  direct  action  of  God,  or  rather, 
because  they  were  out  of  the  common,  to  an  interference 
of  God  with  nature.  They  were  right  in  referring  them 
to  God ;  but  it  is  possible  that,  owing  to  their  ignorance 
of  nature,  they  were  wrong  in  their  way  of  explaining 
them.  If  they  had  seen  clearly,  they  would  have  seen 
sufficient  reason  for  them  in  ordinary  causes.  We  ac- 
cept their  teaching  as  far  as  it  is  connected  with  the 
spiritual  Avorld :  we  cannot  accept  it  as  far  as  it  is  con- 
cerned with  the  i)hysical  world,  for  they  knew  nothing 
about  it. 

Secondly,  there  is  a  thought  which  goes  far,  if  it  be 
true,  to  explain  these  things :  it  is  that  the  course 
of  human  history  may  be  so  arranged  that,  at  times, 
healing  or  destructive  natural  occurrences  coincide  with 
crises  in  the  history  of  a  nation.  For  example,  we 
misht  say  that  the  sins  of  Sodom  had  reached  their 
height  at  the  very  period  when  tlie  elastic  forces  which 
were  SAvelling  beneath  the  plain  of  tlie  Dead  Sea  had 
reached  their  last  possible  expansion.  Or  that  the  army 
of  Sennacherib  lay  encamped  in  the  way  of  the  pestilen- 
tial wind,  which  would  have  blown  over  the  spot  whether 
they  had  been  there  or  not. 


NATURALNESS  OF  GOD's  JUDGMENTS.  221 


Tliirdly,  whatever  difficulty  tliese  things  present  to 
us  ill  the  Bible,  the  same  difficulty  occurs  in  ■what  is 
profanely  called  jirofane  history.  There  is  not  the 
slightest  doubt  that,  had  the  Carthaginians  been  Jews, 
the  earthquake  at  Thrasymene  would  have  been  repre- 
sented as  a  miraculous  interference  of  God.  There  is 
not  the  slightest  doulit,  were  your  English  history  written 
by  a  Hebrew  of  the  time  of  the  kings,  that  the  eclij^se 
and  tlie  thunder-storm  at  Creyy,  and  that  the  storms 
Mhicli  broke  tlie  Armada  on  the  rocks  of  England  and 
Scotland,  Avotild  hn\e  been  im2)uted  to  a  miraculous  in- 
terference by  God  with  the  course  of  nature.  We  do 
not  believe  these  to  have  been  miraculous;  but  we  do 
believe  them,  M'ith  the  Jew,  to  be  of  God.  But  we  must 
also  believe  that  they  are  contained  in  the  order  of  the 
world,  not  disorderly  elements  arbitrarily  introduced. 
That  is,  while  believing  in  God  as  tlie  Director  and  Ruler 
of  human  affairs,  we  must  also  believe  in  him  as  the 
Director  and  Ruler  of  the  course  of  nature.  Wliile  we 
believe  revelation,  Ave  must  not  disbelieve  God's  other 
revelation  in  science.  One  is  as  necessary  to  believe  in 
as  the  other. 

We  see  in  all  things  this  laAv  holding  good,- — -that 
God's  judgments  are  natural.  In  these  apparently  super- 
natural judgments,  it  Avould  also  hold  good,  if  we  knew 
all ;  and  our  attitude  toward  science,  therefore,  should 
not  be  an  attitude  of  attack,  or  even  an  attitude  of  de- 
fence, but  an  attitude  of  ready  assistance  and  inquiry. 
We  should  endeavor,  as  religious  men,  not  to  attack 
scientific  men  because  they  endeavor  to  discover  truth, 
but  to  assist  them  Avith  all  our  power,  knoAving  that,  the 
more  we  do  in  this  Avay,  the  better  chance  there  is  of 


222 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


getting  at  the  truth  Avhicli  will  reconcile  the  teaching  of 
science  with  the  teaching  of  revelation.  At  present,  we 
force  on  them  the  attitude  of  oj^position,  we  call  them 
names,  we  ourselves  are  frightened  out  of  our  senses  at 
every  new  discoAcry.  We  are  faithless  men.  Neces- 
sarily, men  of  science  attack  us  with  contemjit  for  our 
unbelief,  and  they  are  right ;  though  it  is  curious  to 
watch  how  Pharisaism  and  priestcraft  are  creeping  upon 
them,  and  how  their  liierarcliy  are  reproducing,  in  intol- 
erance and  ignorance  of  our  position,  the  very  sins  and 
mistakes  of  which  they  accuse  us.  It  would  be  worth 
while  if  we  were  both  to  try  the  other  mode  of  action, 
and  see  if  truth  would  not  better  come  out  of  union  than 
out  of  disunion. 

There  is  another  class  of  occurrences  which  have  been 
called  judgments  of  God,  but  to  which  the  term  "judg- 
ment "  is  inapplicable.  The  circumstance  mentioned  in 
the  text  is  an  example  of  these,  ajid  the  violent  destruc- 
tion of  human  life  by  the  late  hurricane  of  Tortola  is 
another  of  the  san^e  type.  About  the  latter,  I  wish,  in 
conclusion,  to  say  a  few  words. 

There  are  even  now  some  Avho  say  that  the  sufferers 
under  these  blows  of  nature  suffer  because  they  are 
under  the  special  wrath  of  God. 

What  does  Christ  say  to  that?  He  bluntly  contra- 
dicts it.  "  I  tell  you  nay,"  —  it  is  not  so.  There  ai-e 
not  a  few  Avho  still  blindly  think  tliat  suffering  proves 
God's  anger.  Has  the  Cross  taught  us  nothing  better 
than  that,  revealed  to  us  no  hidden  secret, —  not  the 
exi^lanation  given  by  a  fierce  theology,  that  there  we  see 
God's  necessary  anger  expended  on  a  surety,  but  the 
healing  truth  that  there  God's  Love  died  for  the  sake  of 


NATURALNESS  OF  (iOl/s  JUDGMENTS.  223 


mail,  and  tliat  tlic  st'lf-sacrifico  did  not  expiate  wratli, 
but  manifest  eternal  Life, —  was  necessarily  the  salvation 
of  man  from  death  ?  The  instant  we  realize  this,  our 
view  of  suffering  is  changed.  We  see  it  always,  not  as 
the  misery-making,  but  as  the  redemptive,  power  in  the 
world.  Tliere  is  no  pain,  mental  or  physical,  which  is 
not  a  part  of  God's  continual  self-sacrifice  in  us,  and 
which,  were  Ave  united  to  life,  and  not  to  death,  Ave 
should  not  see  as  joy.  Who  regrets  that  the  martyrs 
jjerished  so  cruelly  ?  Not  they  themsches,  not  the 
Church  Avhose  foundations  they  cemented  Avith  their 
blood!  Sympathy  Ave  can  give,  but  regret?  To  regret 
their  death  is  to  dishonor  them.  Wlio  can  say  that  the 
death  and  pain  of  thousands  in  America  for  a  great 
cause  is  matter  of  indignant  sorroAV?  They  died, —  half 
a  million  of  them, — to  establish  a  principle,  and  so  to 
redeem  from  curse  and  degradation,  for  all  the  future, 
millions  of  their  countrymen ;  and  they  suffered  devot- 
edly, and  died  well.  And  those  young  hearts  in  Italy 
who  fell  on  the  vine-slopes  of  Mentana,  fighting  to  the 
last,  Avere  they  fools  or  redeemers?  Redeemers,  if  the 
Cross  be  true.  Every  man  Avho  dies  for  Italy  adds  to 
Italy  a  new  element  of  salvation,  and  makes  it  more 
impossible  that  she  should  much  longer  exist  either  as 
the  slave  of  tyrants  or  the  dupe  of  kings.  It  is  an 
eternal  Liav, —  if  you  Avish  to  save  a  thing,  die  for  it ;  if 
you  Avish  to  redeem  a  man,  suffer  for  him.  And,  Avhen 
God  lets  men  suffer  and  gives  them  to  ]iain  and  deatli, 
it  is  not  the  worst  or  the  guiltiest,  but  the  best  and  the 
25urest,  whom  he  often  chooses  for  his  Avork ;  for  they 
will  do  it  best.  Men  Avring  their  hands,  and  weep  and 
wonder  ;  but  the  sufferers  themselves  accejjt  the  jjain  in 


224 


FAITH  AKD  FEEEDOM. 


the  joy  of  doing  redemptive  work,  and  pass  out  of  the 
region  of  complaint  into  that  of  the  nobler  spirit  which 
rejoices  that  it  is  counted  Avorthy  to  die  for  men. 

But,  say  others,  God  is  cruel  to  pei"mit  such  loss. 
Three  thousand  souls  have  jjerished  in  this  hurricane. 
Is  this  your  God  of  love  ? 

But  look  at  the  history  of  the  hurricane.  A  mass  of 
heated  air  ascends,  along  a  line  of  heated  Avater.  Tavo 
currents  dash  in  right  and  left  to  fill  the  space :  they 
clash,  and  a  Avhu-lwind,  rotating  on  a  vast  scale,  sweeps 
along  the  line.  It  is  the  only  Avay  in  Avhich  the  equi- 
librium of  the  air  can  be  restored.  Those  avIio  object 
to  this  arrangement  Avill  pcrha])S  prefer  that  the  air 
should  be  left  quiet,  in  order  to  protect  their  notion  of 
a  God  of  love.  Well,  AA'hat  is  the  result  ?  Instead  of 
three  thousand  by  a  hurricane,  thirty  thousand  jjerish 
by  a  pestilence. 

"  But  why  restore  it  so  violently  ?  Could  not  God 
arrange  to  have  a  uniform  climate  over  all  the  earth?" 
■\Ye  are  spiritually  puzzled ;  and,  to  arrange  our  doubts, 
God  must  make  another  Avorld !  We  knoAV  not  what 
Ave  ask.  A  uniform  climate  over  all  the  earth  means 
simply  the  death  of  all  living  beings.  It  is  the  tropic 
heat  and  the  polar  cold  Avhich  cause  the  currents  of  the 
ocean  and  the  air,  and  keep  them  fresh  and  j^ure.  A 
stagnant  atmosphere,  a  rotting  sea,  tliat  is  Avhat  Ave  ask 
for.  It  is  Avell  Gud  does  not  take  us  at  our  Avord.  When 
Ave  A\-ish  the  hurricane  away,  Ave  A\  ish  away  the  tropic 
heats  in  the  West  Indies  and  along  the  Avhole  equator. 
What  do  Ave  do  then  ?  We  Avish  aAvay  the  Gulf  Stream, 
and  aimihilate  England.  How  long  Avould  our  national 
greatness  last,  if  Ave  had  here  the  climate  of  Labrador, 


NATURALNESS  OF  GOD's  JUDGMENTS. 


225 


More  than  half  of  tlie  soleinii  folly  which  is  talked 
about  a  God  of  love  not  jjcrinitting  those  physical  calam- 
ities is  due  to  piire  ignorance,  is  due  to  sceptical  per- 
sons never  reading  God's  revealed  book  of  nature.  A 
mere  smattering  of  meteorology  Avould  answer  all  spirit- 
ual doubts  of  this  kind  of  God's  tenderness. 

Because  a  few  perish,  is  God  to  throw  the  whole  world 
into  confusion  ?  The  few  must  be  sometimes  sacrificed 
to  the  many.  But  they  are  not  sacrificed  without  due 
warning.  In  this  case,  God  tells  us  jilainly,  in  his  book 
of  nature,  that  he  wants  to  keep  his  air  and  his  seas 
fresh  and  clean  for  his  children  to  breathe  and  sail  upon. 
The  West  Indies  is  the  ])lace  where  this  work  is  done 
for  the  North  Atlantic  and  its  borders;  and,  unless  the 
whole  constitution  of  the  world  be  entirely  changed, 
that  Avork  must  be  done  by  toi*nadoes.  God  has  made 
that  plain  to  us ;  and  to  all  sailing  and  living  about 
warm  currents  like  the  Gulf  Stream  it  is  as  if  God  said : 
"  Exj^ect  my  hurricanes:  they  must  come.  You  will 
have  to  face  danger  and  death,  and  it  is  my  law  that 
you  should  face  it  everywhere  in  spiritual  as  well  as 
physical  life ;  and  to  call  me  unloving  because  I  impose 
this  on  you  is  to  mistake  the  true  ideal  of  your  humanity. 
I  mean  to  make  you  active  men,  not  slothful  dreamers. 
I  will  not  make  the  world  too  easy  for  my  children.  I 
want  veteran  men,  not  untried  soldiers, —  men  of  endur- 
ance, foresight,  strength,  and  skill  for  my  work, —  and  I 
set  before  you  the  battle.  You  must  face  manfvdly  those 
forces  which  you  call  destructive,  but  which  are  in  real- 
ity reparative.  In  the  struggle,  all  that  l)elongs  to  your 
intellect  —  invention,  activity,  imagination,  forethought, 
combination  —  will  be  enkindled  and  developed,  and  all 


226 


FAITH  AXD  FREEDOM. 


the  uoLler  qualities  of  the  spirit — love  to  me  and  man, 
faith  iu  me  and  man,  sympathy  with  the  race,  tender 
guardianship,  the  purity  of  life  which  is  bom  of  activity 
of  charity  —  will  enter  into  you  and  mould  you  into  my 
likeness.*' 

Brethren,  we  cannot  com2)lain  of  the  destructive  forces 
of  nature.  We  should  have  been  still  savages,  had  we 
not  to  Contend  against  them.  But,  oh  !  we  might  bitterly 
complain  of  the  ruin  wrought  by  them,  if  the  souls  who 
perish  iu  the  contest  died  for  evermore. 

"Wlxat  happened  when  the  "  Rhone,"  iu  mid-day  mid- 
night, went  down  with  all  its  souls  on  board  ?  AVas  it 
only  the  descent  of  a  few  bodies  of  men  and  Avomen 
into  the  silence  of  an  ocean  death,  or  not  rather  the  as- 
cension of*  a  number  of  emancijiated  spirits  into  life? 
When  the  hungry  sea  had  swallowed  all,  and  the  loud 
waves  rolled  onward  imconcerned,  where  were  the  dead  ? 
TVe  know  not  where ;  but  this  we  do  believe :  they  were 
better  off  than  they  had  been  alive,  the  good  in  that 
they  had  entered  into  their  rest,  the  evil  in  that  God  had 
taken  in  hand  more  sharply  to  consume  their  evil.  For 
he  will  not  let  us  go,  evil  or  good,  till  he  has  brought  us 
all  to  his  perfection.  It  matters  little  whether  we  die  by 
hurricane  on  the  sleepless  sea,  or  quietly  by  disease  in 
the  sleeping  city :  the  result  is  the  same,  we  go  to  a 
Father  who  is  educating  us,  we  fall  into  the  hands  of 
Eternal  Justice. 


LIBERTY. 


1874. 

"  Let  every  man  be  fully  persuaded  in  his  own  mind."  —  Rom. 
xiv.,  5. 

Liberty  is  one  of  the  ideas  on  which  the  progress  of 
mankind  dejiends,  and  on  it  I  speak  to-day.  It  is,  of 
course,  necessary  that,  as  far  as  possible,  I  should  define 
what  I  mean  by  it,  else  we  pass  into  that  mere  fine  talk 
which  produces  a  momentary  and  inactive  enthusiasm, 
and  docs  not  sujiport  tliat  love  and  devotion  to  liberty 
which  is  the  parent  of  activity.  If  an  idea  is  to  rule 
life,  we  must  be  able  to  say  what  we  mean  by  it.  Other- 
wise, like  Ixion,  we  embrace  a  cloud. 

It  is  now  said  tliat  liberty  is  not  only  an  indefinite 
term,  but  that  it  is  nothing  more  than  a  negation.  We 
are  told,  in  order  to  prove  its  indefiniteness,  tliat  it  has 
meant  different  things  to  different  people  and  at  differ- 
ent times ;  and  that,  if  you  ask  a  number  of  persons,  they 
will  give  different  explanations  of  it  according  to  their 
])rejudices  or  desires.  And  that  is  true  enough.  But,  all 
the  same,  it  does  not  prove  that  the  idea  is  indefinite  in 
itself.  It  is  the  characteristic  of  any  large  idea  to  take 
different  forms  at  different  times, —  in  fact,  it  must  do 
so :  it  is  the  characteristic  of  an  idea  to  grow  as  mankind 


228 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


advances,  and  its  form  is  tlicrefore  sure  to  change.  Out- 
wardly, it  must  always  be  in  a  condition  of  weaving  and 
nnweaving,  of  ehb  and  flow,  of  birth  and  death.  But,  if 
people  took  tlie  trouble,  tliey  could  at  any  time  arrive  at 
its  root,  and  express  that  in  a  definite  statement.  That 
trouble  they  do  not  take,  and  naturally  enough.  They 
are  too  closely  involved  in  the  struggle  for  a  particular 
part  of  the  idea,  to  ask  themselves  aljout  the  other  parts 
and  to  collect  them  all  under  one  expression.  Thnt  is 
the  work  of  the  student. 

But,  again,  the  idea  of  liberty  does  not  seem  one  whit 
indefinite  to  those  who  at  any  period  are  struggling  for 
it.  Those  who  loved  and  fought  for  it  at  the  great  Re- 
bellion, or  at  any  time  in  our  history,  knew  right  well 
what  they  contended  for.  It  may  have  been  only  part 
of  the  idea  for  which  they  fought,  Init  it  was  a  definite 
part  of  it.  And  we,  looking  back  noAv  on  our  own  his- 
tory and  on  the  history  of  man,  can  point  to  fifty  great 
human  efforts  for  liberty,  and  say.  All  those  were  strug- 
gles for  portions  of  the  idea  of  liberty,  and  the  results 
arrived  at  are  definite  parts  of  the  idea.  We  can  take 
these  results,  generalize  them,  and  find  one  expression 
which  will  include  them  all.  And,  having  found  that 
exjoression,  Ave  can  predict,  with  some  accuracy,  the  new 
forms  the  idea  is  likely  to  take  in  the  future,  and  define 
them. 

It  is  really  nonsense  to  say  that  the  idea  of  liberty  is 
only  a  negation.  Men  do  not  feel  so  strongly  about 
any  mere  negation  as  they  do  about  liberty,  and  when  a 
man  feels,  I  am  free,  or  I  am  not  free,  he  is  feeling 
about  something  which  is  as  positive  to  him  as  his  own 
existence. 


LIBERTY. 


229 


The  difficulty,  liowever,  in  any  clear  definition,  arises 
from  this :  that  the  necessary  action  of  the  State  in 
restriction  of  absolute  freedom  of  action  must  be  con- 
sidered. There  are  many  things  people  cannot  be  al- 
lowed to  do ;  there  are  times  when  for  the  safety  of  the 
whole,  or  for  the  growth  of  the  whole  State,  certain 
things,  as,  for  example,  liberty  to  Imrn  one's  self  alive  in 
India,  or  to  keej)  one's  children  from  school  in  England, 
must  be  prohibited. 

The  statement,  then,  which  we  desire  to  generalize 
from  all  the  various  definitions  of  liberty  at  different 
times,  ought  to  be  one  which  should  not  interfere  with 
the  just  and  recognized  work  of  the  State,  and  at  the 
same  time  one  which  shoixld  not  be  so  wide  as  to  allow 
the  State  to  ride  roughshod  over  it,  which  should  again 
and  again  step  in  and  prevent  the  State  from  falling  into 
its  common  habit  of  meddling  too  much,  of  enacting 
restrictive  laws  for  the  sake  of  expediency. 

I  should  exjjress,  then,  the  idea  of  lil)erty  in  this  Avay: 
that  every  sane  person  has  the  absolute  right  of  free 
thought  and  its  expression,  and  that  there  should  not 
be  any  restraint  whatsoever  placed  on  his  expression  of 
thought  on  any  subject.  That  I  hold  to  be  the  last 
generalization  of  the  idea  of  liberty,  and  I  want  no  more. 
It  gives  me  all  I  Avant.  In  politics,  when  every  one  is 
entirely  free  to  discuss  the  different  forms  of  govern- 
ment, to  think  his  own  thoughts  and  to  say  his  say  about 
them,  the  best  form  of  government  and  the  freest  will  be 
arrived  at  in  the  end.  All  we  want  is  absolute  freedom 
of  thought  and  discussion,  even  of  subjects  supposed  to 
be  dangerous  to  the  State,  even  of  forms  of  government 
which  directly  contradict  the  existing  form.    And,  on 


230 


FAITH  AKD  FREEDOM. 


the  whole,  we  have  got  that  in  England,  and,  havmg  got 
it,  Ave  can  in  the  end  make  prevail  any  new  parts  of  the 
idea  of  liberty  we  may  wish  to  work  out.  If  those  parts 
are  really  necessary  to  the  idea,  we  have  only  to  pro- 
claim them,  and  they  will  whi  tlicir  Avay  in  time. 

In  the  case  of  religious  lil)erty,  the  same  thing  holds. 
We  should  have  the  right  to  think  and  express  our 
thoughts  on  all  religious  subjects,  and  there  should  be  no 
State  restraint  whatsoever  upon  this.  That  is  also,  on 
the  whole,  tlie  case  in  this  country.  The  existence  of 
a  State  Church  may  seem  to  deny  it,  with  its  subscrip- 
tions and  legal  restrictions.  And  uji  to  a  certain  point 
it  does,  and  for  myself  I  have  no  doubt  that  before  long 
a  State  Church  will  perish.  But  it  has  felt  the  general 
influence  of  the  idea.  Its  work  for  the  last  twenty  years 
has  not  been  one  of  restriction.  It  has  added  no  new 
restraints;  on  the  contrary,  it  has  so  loosened  obliga- 
tions that,  so  far  as  the  law  goes,  almost  any  religious 
opinion,  a  few  doctrines  being  distinctly  held,  may  be 
expressed  within  its  limits.  Subscrijition  has  been  re- 
duced by  law  to  a  merely  nominal  thing ;  and  so  far  as 
State  restriction  goes,  and  leaving  out  the  freaks  of  indi- 
A'idual  conscience,  he  would  be  a  very  sul)tle  ])erson  who 
did  not  feel  himself,  provided  he  was  not  a  pure  theist 
or  an  atheist,  at  a  very  large  liberty  of  thought  in  the 
English  Church.  At  present,  it  is  the  religious  body  in 
"which  men's  opinions  are  allowed  the  fullest  freedom,  in 
which  the  idea  of  lil)erty,  in  its  relation  to  religion,  has 
the  largest  development. 

This,  then,  whicli  we  find  in  England  nearly  complete, 
the  right,  wliolly  unrestrained,  of  individual  thought  and 
of  its  exjjression,  is  the  best  and  most  definite  cxj^ression 


LIBERTY. 


231 


of  the  idc'ii  of  liberty.  It  is  tlie  real  ground  of  all  the 
noble  struggles  for  freedom  that  the  world  has  seen. 
When  we  get  back  as  far  as  we  can  to  the  farthest  cause 
of  wars  of  liberty,  of  reformations  and  revolutions  for 
liberty,  that  is  the  last  expression  which  we  come  to. 
That  idea,  then,  is  the  root  of  all  developments  of  lib- 
erty, the  centre  whence  all  the  various  radii  diverge. 
And  that  is  what  we  are  to  \o\e  and  dcA  ote  our  li\  es  to, 
and  die  for,  if  need  be ;  and  in  loving  it,  and  in  sacrifice 
for  it,  we  love  and  sacrifice  ourselves  for  the  race. 
Wlienever  we  say,  think,  and  do  anything  insjnred  by  it, 
no  matter  how  humble  or  how  retired  our  life,  we  assist 
the  onward  movement  of  man :  whenever  we  deny  it 
or  are  false  to  it  in  act,  even  in  the  little  range  of  our 
own  family,  we  are  living  for  ourselves  and  injuring 
mankind. 

The  State  that  in  all  its  Avork  consistently  holds  to 
this  idea  of  liberty  promotes  the  good,  not  only  of  its 
own  special  subjects,  but  the  good  of  the  whole  race. 
The  State  that  in  any  way  whatsoever  jn-escribes  it  or 
disables  it  injures  itself,  and  injures  man. 

Now,  I  call  that  definite  enough :  thought  and  its 
expression  are  to  be  absolutely  free,  no  restraint  what- 
ever is  to  be  ])laccd  u])on  them.  Tliat  is  the  idea.  And, 
if  you  ask  Avhere  are  tlie  restraints  to  be  found,  then, 
against  evil  thoughts  and  evil  opinions,  and  the  evil  their 
proi5agation  is  likely  to  do,  I  say  that  they  are  only  to 
be  rightly  found  witliin  the  idea  itself, —  in  the  free  ex- 
pression (in  oj)iiosition  to  evil  opinions)  of  good  opinions, 
and  in  the  victory  these  are  certain  to  have  in  the  end. 

And  now,  having  got  our  definition,  and  therefore 
our  idea  of  liberty,  what  are  the  religious  grounds  on 


232 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


which  yve  cling  to  it?  In  stating  these, —  and  these 
have  not  been  stated,  the  subject  has  not  been  ap- 
proached from  this  side, —  I  will  sliow  my  reason  for  the 
assumption  I  make,  that  tlie  best  opinions  and  ideas 
will,  after  free  discussion,  prevail  in  the  end. 

1.  This  idea  on  tlie  side  of  religion  is  founded  on 
the  fact  that  God  has  made  each  one  of  us  a  distinct 
person  ;  that  we  each  ])ossess,  and  are  bound  to  act  up 
to,  an  individuality.  I  have  an  intellect,  heart,  charac- 
ter, and  life  of  my  own,  modified  by  circumstances  and 
by  the  influence  of  others,  but  my  own ;  and  I  have  a 
body  of  thought  as  the  residt  of  this,  which  I  have  a 
more  absolute  right  to  than  I  have  to  my  2:)roperty,  and 
which  I  am  bound  to  express  by  a  stronger  duty  than 
that  Avhich  binds  me  to  my  jiroperty.  Why  is  that? 
From  the  religious  point  of  view,  I  answer.  Because  it  is 
God  who  has  made  you  an  individual,  it  is  he  himself 
who  in  you  has  made  you  a  rejiresentative  of  a  distinct 
phase  of  his  being,  a  doer  of  a  distinct  part  of  his 
work.  Christianity  says  the  same  thing.  It  revealed 
and  insisted  on  the  distinct  and  individual  relation  of 
every  sejiarate  soul  to  God  and  to  its  fellows.  And  in 
so  doin<r  it  fell  in  with  the  stroncrest  element  in  human 
nature,  the  personal  element,  tliat  element  which  in  its 
ceaseless  growth  in  each  man  lias  created  the  idea  of 
liberty.  Falling  in  with  that  element,  it  jiromoted  nec- 
essarily the  idea  of  liberty;  and,  if  anything  is  remark- 
able in  Christianity,  it  is  tlie  way  in  which  it  gave  an 
impulse  to  individual  thought  and  to  the  freedom  of 
self-development.  When  God  in  Christ  said  to  every 
man  and  woman,  You  are  infinitely  worthy  as  a  person 
in  my  eyes,  you  have  a  distinct  personal  relation  to 


LIBERTY. 


233 


mc :  yonr  tliought  is  youi'  own,  and  you  must  rather 
die  than  allow  it  to  be  forced,  or  give  it  up  for  the  sake 
of  earthly  rewards,  he  confirmed  and  gave  a  new  im- 
pulse to  every  effort  of  liberty,  and  lie  fixed  its  idea. 
Of  course,  the  wliole  range  of  the  ideas  of  the  cultured 
and  political  classes  were  against  that  doctrine  of  indi- 
vidualitv,  and  it  had  slow  growth.  Tlie  Churcli  itself, 
more  wise  than  the  State,  took  the  popular  ideas  of 
restriction  of  opinion,  and  used  them  with  the  help  of 
outward  force.  But  the  idea  of  liberty  of  thouglit  and 
its  expression  was  too  strong  for  Str.te  and  Church  in 
the  end;  and,  though  their  restrictions  linger  still,  the 
idea  has  prevailed  and  Avill  prevail,  for  God  directs  it. 
No  one  can  now  say  it  is  indefinite  or  a  negation,  with- 
out blindness.  In  every  reformation  of  religion,  in  e^■ery 
political  revolution,  it  has  been  the  one  grand  thought  at 
their  root.  God  has  made  it  pretty  plain  that  it  is  one 
of  the  ideas  which  are  absolutely  needful  for  tlie  l)rog- 
ress  of  mankind ;  and  it  is  founded  on  the  first  religious 
and  Christian  idea,  that  every  single  soul  is  a  distinct 
child  of  God,  for  whose  jjerfect  development  as  a  2)er- 
son  he  cares  and  works. 

But  that  de\  elopment  is  impossible,  if  thought  and 
its  expression  are  restrained.  For  a  father  to  do  tliat 
for  a  child  is  bad  enough,  for  a  State  or  a  Church  to 
do  it  for  a  large  number  of  their  subjects  is  ^worse  still. 
And,  wlienever  this  liberty  is  repressed  by  force  of 
law  or  arms,  tliose  wlio  do  it  are  fighting  against  God. 
And  men  have  always  felt  this;  and  every  struggle  for 
liberty  of  thought  becomes  a  religious  one,  and  ought 
to  be  considered  as  such.  And  it  is  confessed  to  be 
such  by  those  who  share  in  the  struggle,  except  Avhen 


234 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


the  Church  lias  taken  tlie  side  of  repression,  and  forced 
the  contenders  for  liberty  into  irreligion.  But  what- 
ever side  the  Church  took,  and  ho\vever  irreligious  the 
contendei's  for  liberty  were,  the  struggle  itself,  in  its 
absolute  relation  to  things,  M'as  religious;  for  it  was  on 
the  side  of  God. 

That  is  one  religious  foundation  of  the  idea.  The 
other  relio'ious  ground  of  the  idea  is  in  truth  an  cxten- 
sion  of  the  former.  It  is  this, —  God  is  educating  not 
only  persons,  but  the  race.  His  end  is  to  bring  it  to 
perfection.  But  he  does  this  not  in  the  manner  of  a 
paternal  desjiot  who  makes  peo])Ie  good  by  force,  not  in 
any  supernatural  Avay,  but  Avithin  tlie  ordinary  laws  of 
human  nature. 

lie  does  not  tell  men  what  is  T)est,  and  impel  them 
into  it  at  once.  He  respects  the  freedom  of  the  creat- 
ures he  has  kindled  into  being,  and  bids  them  find  out 
through  experience  and  effort  the  best  things ;  while  he 
keeps  at  the  same  time  a  general  direction  of  the  whole, 
assists  the  effort  when  it  is  toward  good,  and  moves  in 
the  Avhole  race  and  its  history  as  a  spirit  of  love  and 
freedom  and  power  and  goodness. 

It  follows,  if  this  theory  be  true,  and  it  follows  as  a 
part  of  the  theory,  tliat  there  is  a  necessity,  in  order 
that  men  should  discoA  cr  Avhat  is  good  to  believe  and  act 
on,  that  they  should  go  through'  every  j^ossible  view  of 
anything  they  need  to  believe  or  use,  and  arrive  at  the 
right  idea  of  it  by  exhausting  all  the  wrong  ones.  Then 
and  not  till  then  can  they  finally  discern  the  right  one, 
and  saying,  Tliis  form,  and  this,  and  this  of  the  idea,  are 
wrong,  and  jiroved  to  be  MTong  by  their  evil  results,  but 
this  is  the  right  one,  and  j^roved  to  be  so  by  every  day's 


LIBERTY. 


235 


experience,  secure  at  last,  after  ages  of  discussion,  an 
eternal  truth. 

We  hold  then,  first,  that  God  practically  says  to  man  : 
Figlit  out  every  question.  I  give  you  absolute  freedom 
of  thoiight  on  them,  and  I  wish  you  to  use  it.  I  M'ish 
you  m  Ik'u  you  have  any  thouglit  on  them  to  ex])ress  it, 
and  I  gi\-e  you  absolute  freedom  to  do  so.  And  tliat  is 
the  real  state  of  tilings  ■which  we  find  to  ha\e  prevailed 
on  looking  back  at  history.  Every  great  question,  every 
great  idea,  has  l)een  represented  in  a  thousand  forms  of 
thought ;  and  all  have  been  freely  fought  over.  Some 
are  still  under  discussion,  as  the  idea  of  liberty,  for 
example;  others,  we  may  say,  are  settled  in  civilized 
countries,  but  it  has  taken  centuries  to  settle  them.  On 
the  whole,  and  often  by  reason  of  the  very  elements 
which  seem  to  02)pose  it,  there  has  been  in  this  world 
a  fierce  freedom  of  discussion  and  thought ;  and  it  has 
had  its  source  in  God. 

We  hold,  secondly,  since  God  guides  the  world,  that 
however  fierce  the  battle,  and  however  confusing  the 
chaos  of  ojjinions,  the  best  and  noblest  thing  will  in  the 
end  prevail,  and  its  idea  in  its  right  and  j^t'i'f'-'Ct  form 
stand  clear  at  last,  and  be  recognized  by  all.  And  when 
all  the  ideas  which  are  necessary  for  man  to  believe  and 
act  on  have  gone  through  this  long  series  of  experiments, 
and  are  knoM  U  and  loved  by  all,  then  Avill  the  race  be 
perfect. 

Now,  these  things,  being  believed,  are  a  ground  of  the 
idea  of  liberty  I  haxe  i>ut  forward.  We  ought  to  fall  in 
with  the  method  of  God's  education  of  the  race;  and  the 
way  to  do  it  is  for  the  State  in  public  life,  and  for  our- 
selves in  social  and  private  life,  to  give- perfect  liberty  of 


236 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


thought  and  its  expression  on  all  jiossible  subjects.  But, 
then,  there  will  be  continual  contest,  disturbance,  differ- 
ence, and  no  jjeace.  Certainly,  what  else  can  you  ex- 
jject  ?  It  is  the  natural  result.  It  will  happen  whether 
you  like  it  or  not,  and  all  your  efforts  after  repression  of 
thought  Avill  only  increase  the  disturbance.  You  are 
fighting,  when  you  restrain  thought,  against  a  law  of 
humanity,  and,  instead  of  making  ])eace,  you  only  double 
war.  Recognize  the  law,  chime  in  with  it,  and  assist 
and  stimulate  the  battle  of  opinion.  The  peace  you 
desire  can  only  be  won  through  this  war.  Not  till  every 
oj^iuion  on  any  large  question  is  worked  through  can 
peace  on  that  question  be  attained. 

But  men  are  frightened  to  do  this.  They  say  that 
immoral  or  evil  oj)inions  will  be  put  forward;  and  that 
this  will  hinder  the  progress  of  mankind,  that  opinions 
dangerous  to  the  welfare  of  the  State,  dangerous  to  lib- 
erty, dangerous  to  })olitioal  jirogress,  will  be  put  for- 
ward, and  that  these  will  do  cruel  damage.  Therefore, 
they  think  there  is  no  hoj^e  of  solution  excej^t  in  author- 
ity, in  repressing  or  discouraging  by  the  strong  hand  of 
the  State  thoughts  which  we  know  to  be  evil  for  man- 
kind or  perilous  to  the  State.  I  say  that  is  not  only  a 
sin,  in  that  it  violates  liberty,  but  a  folly,  in  that  it  has 
been  proved  a  hundred  times  that  it  does  not  attain  its 
end.  It  only  strengthens  the  false  opinion,  it  only  gives 
new  life  to  the  dangerous  one.  Place  a  dam  across  a 
river,  you  do  not  diminish  the  volume  of  water  behind 
it,  you  only  give  it  force  in  that  particular  place.  You 
may  be  very  comfortable  below  it  for  a  time  where  you 
have  lessened  the  amount  of  water  ;  but  the  time  comes 
when  the  river  swells,  and  then  where  is  your  dam,  and 
what  is  its  result  ?    The  devastation  of  an  inundation. 


LIBERTY. 


237 


"  But,  if  we  allow  absolute  freedom  of  thought  and 
expression,  we  do  not  produce  any  clear  ideas  on  any 
subject,  only  a  chaos  of  opinions,  as,  for  example,  on  the 
subject  of  liberty."  That  is  only  too  likely  to  be  your 
view,  if  you  do  not  believe  in  a  God  who  is  educating 
the  race.  And  you  are  driven  back,  having  no  faith  or 
hope,  on  the  plan  of  authority ;  but  tlie  true  lover  of 
liberty,  who  believes  in  God  as  a  divine  and  guiding 
spirit  in  men,  has  not  only  hope,  but  certainty,  that  a 
solution  will  be  found.  He  knows  that  the  best  and 
highest  view  of  the  idea  will  in  the  end  prevail ;  and 
that  the  more  liberty  of  discussion  he  gives,  even  of  evil 
and  dangerous  opinions,  the  sooner  will  the  solution  be 
arrived  at. 

Tlicse  are  the  religious  grounds  on  which  we  base  our 
idea  of  liberty ;  and  for  that  idea,  so  founded,  M-e  are 
ready  to  die.  We  ought  to  love  it  with  all  our  heart 
and  soul ;  we  ought  to  sacrifice  anything  and  everything 
for  it ;  we  ought  to  devote  our  life  and  all  our  powers  to 
extend  it ;  we  ought  to  be  true  to  it,  no  matter  how 
alluring  the  temptation  to  palter  with  it.  And  we  ought 
to  love  it  as  a  jiart  of  our  religion,  for  we  know  that  it  is 
the  will  of  God,  when  we  look  at  the  revelation  he  gave 
through  Christ,  and  at  the  revelation  he  has  given  in  the 
course  of  history.  I  hold,  then,  that  all  restraint  of  opin- 
ion and  its  expression  is  irreligious.  All  disabling  laws 
are  irreligious,  no  matter  how  expedient  they  may  seem ; 
that  is,  all  laws  M'hich  make  the  exi^ression  of  thouglit  on 
any  subjects  whatever  a  crime  to  be  punished  by  the 
State.  The  State  has  notliing  to  do  with  oi^inion.  It  is 
quite  different  when  opinions  are  put  into  overt  acts. 
Of  these,  the  State  has  cognizance.    It  has  a  perfect 


238 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


right  to  step  in  there,  and  say,  You  have  a  right  to  hold 
your  opinion,  to  preach  it,  and  make  it  prevail,  if  you 
can.  If  you  can,  it  will,  through  winning  a  majority  to 
its  side,  become  part  of  the  law  of  the  State ;  but,  till 
you  do  make  it  jsrevail,  I  have  a  right  to  prevent  your 
])utting  it  into  act,  and  to  punish  you  if  you  do,  and  in 
so  doing  I  do  not  violate  but  secure  liberty.  And,  if  you 
do  get  a  very  large  nimiber  to  hold  your  view,  and  not 
being  able  to  make  it  prevail  in  the  free  council  of  the 
State,  and  seeing,  too,  that  it  is  getting  weaker  instead 
of  stronger, —  as,  for  examj^le,  was  the  case  in  America 
with  regard  to  the  question  of  slavery, —  you  choose  to 
supjjort  it  overtly  in  arais,  I  have  a  right,  in  the  inter- 
ests of  liberty  of  thought,  to  go  to  war  with  you,  and 
compel  you,  if  I  can,  to  bow  to  the  more  prevalent 
opinion. 

That  would  be  the  case  in  free  States  where  liberty 
of  thought  and  its  expression  on  political  subjects  is 
allowed  by  the  State. 

Then  there  is  another  class  of  questions  much  dis- 
cussed at  present, —  marriage,  education,  and  others.  To 
insist  on  civil  marriages,  to  make  education  compulsory, 
to  say  that  every  clergyman  connected  with  the  State 
should  take  a  university  degree,  does  not  in  the  slightest 
infringe  on  the  idea  of  liberty  I  have  laid  down,  if  the 
State  at  the  same  time  permits  tlie  freest  possible  dis- 
cussion of  these  things  ;  if  it  says.  Preach,  teach,  protest, 
agitate  against  them  as  much  as  you  will,  strive  your 
best  to  make  the  ojiposite  views  prevail.  But,  if  it  not 
only  frames  these  laws,  but  also  makes  it  penal  to  agitate 
against  them  by  free  speech,  then  it  does  violate  liberty, 
and  is  committing  a  sin  and  a  folly. 


LIBERTY. 


239 


And  this  I  hold  tliat  Germany  is  now  doing  in  tlie 
matter,  not  of  tlie  above  laws,  but  on  the  question 
of  papal  infallibility.  It  has  said,  To  preach  this  doc- 
trine is  dangerous  to  the  State.  It  conflicts  with  luy 
ideas,  it  liindcrs  ])rogress,  it  is  injurious  to  freedom,  and 
I  will  make  the  teaching  of  it  penal.  Your  ])ricsts  have 
taken  the  oath  of  allegiance  to  the  State,  and  belong  to 
a  State  Church.  This  new  faith  of  yours  contradicts 
your  oath,  and  you  must  give  up  the  expression  of  it. 
You  may  say  that  you  submit  to  tlie  rule  of  the  State 
Church ;  but,  if  you  teach  this  oj)inion,  I  will  hold  that 
it  violates  those  rules,  and  make  a  law  to  that  effect  to 
restrain  your  opinion. 

The  State  has  no  right  to  do  that,  if  it  jjretends  to 
be  a  free  State.  Its  action  violates  the  idea  of  liberty. 
If  German  liberals  say  that  this  is  being  true  to  liberty, 
they  must  be  either  very  blind  or  very  hypocritical.  I 
do  not  accuse  them  of  the  latter.  They  are  really 
carried  away  by  hatred  of  an  illiberal  system  into  a 
deliberate  violation  of  liberty.  They  choose  to  violate 
liberty  for  the  sake  of  what  they  think  to  be  liberty. 
They  have  got  no  clear  idea  of  what  the  idea  of  liberty 
is.  And  they  are  utterly  Avrong.  They  are  placing  expe- 
diency before  right;  they  are  fighting  agamst  human 
nature  in  figliting  against  the  fi-ee  thought  of  the  indi- 
A'idual  and  its  expression:  they  are  fighting  against  God 
in  fighting  against  his  will  that  all  truth  should  be  ar- 
rived at  only  by  absolute  freedom  of  discussion.  And 
it  is  downright  persecution ;  and  surely  we  know  that 
persecution  of  oijinion  is  wrong.  If  I  am  told  truly, 
there  are  a  number  of  Roman  Catholic  churches  entirely 
shut  up  in  the  Rhine  Provinces.    What  does  that  mean? 


240 


FAITH  AlfD  FREEDOM. 


It  is  not  only  wrong,  it  is  folly.  Have  we  not  learned 
yet,  has  history  not  yet  made  it  clear,  that  persecution 
is  a  mistake, — that  it  invariably  weakens  the  State,  even 
when  it  gains  its  end  of  destroying  or  expelling  those  it 
persecutes?  What  did  it  do  for  Spain  when  it  drove 
out  the  Moors  and  decimated  the  Jews?  What  for 
France,  when  it  made  the  country  too  hot  for  the 
Huguenots?  It  is  double  folly  at  this  time  of  the  world, 
when  it  cannot  do  its  work  completely  by  extermination, 
but  only  proceed  by  fine  and  imprisonment.  The  result 
will  show  its  folly.  It  will  be  to  strengthen  ultramon- 
tanism  in  Germany,  and  to  extend  its  life.  For  the  State 
to  make  its  opponents  martyrs  is  to  deejjen  their  power. 
Ultramontanism  will  die  out ;  but  this  sort  of  thing 
■will  be  a  cordial  to  its  decaying  body.  It  is  further 
wrong  in  that  such  a  law  directly  tempts  men  to  do 
wrong.  No  sin  could  be  greater  or  more  degrading 
than  that  any  man,  believing  an  opinion  to  be  right, 
should  cease  to  teach  it  for  the  sake  of  escaping  punish- 
ment or  of  gaining  worldly  reward ;  and  all  laws  that 
make  opinion  penal  tem2)t  men  to  that.  You  may  say 
individual  opinion  must  be  sacrificed  to  the  welfare  of 
the  State.  Yes,  the  individual  may  do  that  of  his  own 
free  will,  and  be  right  in  doing  so.  But  that  is  very  dif- 
ferent from  this,  which  forces  him  or  tries  to  force  him 
to  do  so :  it  is  not  a  sacrifice  you  claim  from  him,  it  is 
self-degradation ;  and  the  degradation  of  any  citizen  of 
the  State  weakens  the  State  by  the  lowering  of  the 
moral  tone  of  the  citizen.  And,  lastly,  the  very  excuse 
made  for  it  is  as  wrong  and  as  foolish  as  it  is  itself.  "All 
ultramontane  A'iews  oppose  and  hinder  liberty,  and  re- 
tard the  progi'ess  of  man :  we  are  right  to  repress  their 


LIBERTY. 


241 


being  taught  because  they  (hi  so."  Tliat  is,  liberty  is 
violated  for  the  sake  of  lilx-rty.  This  is  the  old  iniqui- 
tous thing,  a  leaf  out  of  the  book  of  the  very  Jesuitry 
they  are  opjiosing,  "The  end  justifies  the  means,  let  us 
do  evil  for  the  sake  of  good."  That  is  a  wrong  excuse, 
it  is  a  foolish  excuse  also.  To  tell  lies  for  the  sake  of 
tnith  lias  never  succeeded;  and  to  violate  liberty  —  no 
matter  liow  exjiedient  it  may  seem,  no  matter  how  dan- 
gerous to  liberty  the  opinions  repressed  may  be  —  has 
never  strengthened  liberty.  And  just  as  much  harm  as 
jiious  frauds  have  done  to  religion,  so  much  harm  to  be 
illiberal  for  the  sake  of  liberty  does  to  liberty. 

It  is  in  order  to  express  sympathy  with  the  German 
struggle  against  ultramontanism,  of  which  this  perse- 
cuting law  is  an  integral  part,  that  there  are  meetings 
to  be  held  this  week  in  London.  I  trust  that  those 
who  direct  then^  will,  while  approving  of  some  of  the 
Falk  laws,  mark  their  disapproval  of  that  one  which 
violates  the  idea  of  liberty  I  have  ventured  to  lay  down. 
If  they  are  liberals  and  they  suffer  themselves  to  be  be- 
trayed into  apjiroval  of  it,  they  will  be  contradicting  all 
the  principles  we  have  been  contending  for  during  more 
than  two  centuries.  I  fear  that  many  will  be  hurried 
away  through  dislike  of  ultramontanism,  and,  for  the 
sake,  as  they  think,  of  liberty,  to  some  sort  of  approval. 
I  am  already  dismayed  by  hearing  the  old  arguments 
used  by  those  who  opposed  the  repeal  of  the  penal  laws 
against  the  Catholics,  arguments  which  went  on  the 
ground  that  Catholic  ojnnions  were  dangerous  to  liberty, 
used  noAV  by  men  who  have  been  up  to  tliis  moment, 
when  they  are  irritated  l)y  the  views  of  tlie  ultramon- 
tanes,  true  partisans  of  liberty.    And  I  and  many  others 


242 


FAITH  AKD  FREEDOM. 


are  asking,  Have  men  really  no  clear  idea  of  liberty,  no 
firm  ground  on  which  to  place  it,  that  now  prejudice  or 
expediency  at  once  carries  them  away  ?  It  is,  of  course, 
hard  to  resist  using  authority  when  one  has  to  contend 
against  a  retrograde  and  degrading  set  of  ideas,  such  as 
those  of  the  ultramontanes;  l)ut  surely  we  ought  to  be 
able  to  hold  fast  in  the  midst  of  our  irritation  to  our 
idea,  and  keep  it  in  its  j^nrity.  And  I  am  very  sorry,  as 
a  matter  of  wisdom  and  for  the  sake  of  liberty,  that  the 
meeting  is  to  be  held.  It  will  have  tM'o  results:  it  will 
strengthen  ultramontanism  in  tliis  country,  and  it  will 
raise  the  old,  wild,  unreasoning  Protestant  cry,  with  all 
its  attendant  intolerance,  in  the  mass  of  the  uncultivated 
people  of  this  city. 

It  is  in  cases  like  this  that  we  are  called  upon  to 
hold  fast  to  our  idea.  Do  not  let  hatred  of  that  which 
is  against  liberty  lead  you  to  be  false  to  liberty.  Love 
your  idea  too  well  to  be  untrue  to  it,  even  for  its  own 
sake.  Believe  in  it  too  strongly  to  be  afraid  of  any 
opinions  that  oppose  it.  Say  to  men  like  the  ultramon- 
tanes, who  stand  in  the  way  of  truth  and  knowledge  and 
freedom,  I  believe  in  liberty:  therefore,  the  more  you 
express  your  opinions,  the  better.  Say  to  yourself,  God 
wishes  free  thought  and  individual  expression  of  it; 
therefore,  I  know  I  am  right  in  refusing  to  use  authority 
of  any  kind  for  its  re])ression,  and  in  disapproving  the 
action  of  any  State  so  far  as  it  uses  it.  Say  to  yourself, 
God  IS  educating  the  world  through  the  battle  of  free 
thought:  therefore,  the  noblest  view  of  the  idea  of  lib- 
erty must  preA'ail  in  the  end  ;  and,  in  order  that  it  may 
more  quickly  prevail,  let  iis  exhaust  by  free  discussion  of 
them  all  the  ignoble  ones.    I  know  that  all  the  false  ones 


LIBERTY. 


243 


will  go  down:  my  part  is  to  be  true  to  the  true  idea,  to 
love  it,  to  devote  myself  to  it,  to  sacrifice  myself  for  it. 
And  in  doing  so  I  devote  myself,  so  far  forth,  to  the  race 
of  man ;  I  love  and  sacrifice  myself  for  man ;  I  follow  the 
example  and  live  by  the  spirit  of  Jesus  Christ.  » 


THE  mDIYIDUAL  SOUL  AI^D  GOD. 


1875. 

"  What  man  of  you,  having  an  hundred  sheep,  if  he  lose  one  of 
them,  doth  not  leave  the  ninety  and  nine  in  the  wilderness,  and  go 
after  that  which  is  lost,  until  he  find  it  ?  "  —  Luke  xv.,  5. 

WiTHix  this  outward  "world,  which  we  think  so  real, 
but  which  is  only  a  shadow,  lies  the  inward  actual  world. 
It  is  invisible  to  our  eyes,  inaudible  to  our  ears.  Visions 
of  it  come  and  go  before  us,  notes  of  its  music,  hints  of 
its  truths,  just  touch  us,  who  are  common  men,  and  go. 
It  is  hard ;  for  all  life  and  all  knowledge  and  all  rest 
consist  in  our  Avinning  some  of  its  realities,  in  finally 
finding  enough  of  it  to  gain  the  power  of  living  in  it. 
Hapjjily  for  us,  there  are  men  and  women  born  into  the 
world  who  are  A'ery  near  it,  who  live  on  its  frontier,  who 
often  pass  into  it.  These  have  what  we  call  genius.  It 
is  the  mark  of  genius  that  it  sees  the  invisible  world, 
hears  its  music,  feels  its  thoughts.  Tou  may  think  I 
speak  only  of  the  spiritual  world  which  has  to  do  with 
the  spirit  of  man  in  its  relation  to  God.  Not  so  :  that  is 
only  one  part  of  the  actual  world  of  which  our  world  is 
the  shadow.  The  true  world  is  as  much  the  invisible 
one  in  all  the  secular  realms  of  thouglit  and  feeling  and 
act  as  It  IS  in  the  spiritual  realms  of  thought  and  feeling, 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  SOUL  AND  GOD. 


245 


and  Ave  must  get  into  it  at  all  points  before  we  can  truly- 
live.  It  is  men  of  genius  who  are  the  mediators  between 
us  and  it,  the  way  by  Avhich  Ave  enter  into  it.  They 
reveal  the  unknoAvn  life  and  music  and  truth  :  Ave  see 
the  things  they  reveal,  loA-e  them,  and  shall  finally  attain 
them. 

The  artist  sees  within  the  block  a  beautiful  thing,  and 
carves  it  for  men ;  and  it  becomes  a  liA'ing  thing  to  him 
and  us,  a  thing  not  of  this  Avorld,  but  of  the  invisible 
world.  It  lives  for  us,  and  Ave  loA'e  it.  The  story  of 
Pygmalion  is  no  dream.  Another  sees  in  every  quiet 
nook  among  the  hills,  in  every  stormy  battle  of  the 
clouds,  not  the  relations  of  color  and  form  that  seem  to 
us,  but  the  emotions  and  life  of  the  living  Being,  the 
movement  of  Avhose  heart  and  brain  makes  the  AA'orld  to 
us ;  and  it  is  these  he  paints.  We  look  at  the  picture, 
and  we  see  the  invisible  world  through  his  Avork.  The 
great  natural  philosopher,  like  Newton  or  Faraday,  sees 
the  ideas  that  make  the  material  Avorld  bans:  together, 
and  knows  the  truth  he  has  to  prove  before  he  proves  it. 
The  great  poet  does  not  build  up  by  reasoning  the  talk 
of  Othello  and  lago,  and  Romeo  and  Juliet :  he  has 
heard  them  speak,  and  seen  the  chamber  at  Cyprus,  the 
orchard  at  Verona, —  only  the  names  are  nothing,  the 
world  in  which  they  are  is  the  inA'isible  Avorld  of  the 
human  emotions.  The  great  musician  listens  Avith  no 
earthly  ear  to  his  music.  That  Avhich  he  makes  us  hear 
he  has  heard,  sung,  and  played  Avhere  no  Avaves  of  air 
repeat  the  A'ibrations. 

Eye  hath  not  seen  nor  ear  heard  what  these  men  feel. 
But,  Avhen  they  make  them  into  form,  Ave  hear  and  see, 
though  it  is  only  dimly,  something  of  that  invisible  and 


246 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


inaudible  world  which  is  the  true  one,  and  we  are  led 
away  from  the  apparent  world  which  surrounds  us  to 
love  and  seek  the  other ;  and,  as  we  seek,  we  learn  a 
little,  and  that  little  helps  us  forward,  till  more  and  more 
our  inner  eye  and  ear  are  awakened,  and  at  last  we  see 
and  hear  for  ourselves,  and  then  we  are  happy.  We 
have  lost  the  shadow  world,  and  gained  the  substantial. 
We  know  the  worth  of  the  sensible  tilings,  that  they  are 
shadows  useful  only  to  tell  us  that  there  are  real  things 
that  cast  them.  And,  the  real  things  attained,  we  think 
no  more  of  their  shadoAvs. 

In  this  effort,  of  what  use  is  the  intellect  acting  by 
itself?  It  is  of  no  use  at  all  till  the  truth  is  seen,  and 
it  never  sees  or  can  see  truth.  It  has  to  do  with  the 
phenomenal  world  alone,  with  the  shadows  of  the  true. 
All  it  can  do  is  to  make  the  shadows  darker  and  their 
outlines  more  defined.  Those  who  work  by  it  alone 
think  when  they  have  done  this  that  they  have  discov- 
ered truth.  They  have  only  made  truth  more  difficult 
to  reach,  because  they  have  persuaded  us,  as  so  many 
try  to  persuade  us  now,  that  the  shadows  are  real. 
Truth  is  never  discovered :  it  is  seen,  and  then  revealed. 
When  it  is  seen,  and  only  then,  is  tlie  intellect  of  any 
use.  Then  comes  in  its  service.  It  makes  the  truth 
more  clear,  confirms  and  fits  it  for  practical  use  by 
showing  how  the  shadows  we  call  facts  bear  witness  to 
the  truth  that  casts  them,  by  showing  the  relation  the 
ap])arent  world  bears  to  the  real,  by  enablhig  us  to  make 
iise  of  the  shadows  to  grasp  the  real  things  more  firmly. 

I  daresay  few  of  you  will  believe  all  this.  It  may  be 
true,  you  will  say,  in  the  spiritual  world.  It  is  not  true 
in  the  realms  of  art,  science,  or  jihilosophy.   I  think  it  is. 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  SOUL  AND  GOD. 


247 


I  make  no  distinction  between  the  metliods  and  princi- 
ples of  the  spiritual  and  secular  worlds.  There  is  one 
mind  at  the  root  of  both,  and  in  both  the  mere  intellect 
is  worthless  till  truth  is  seen.  In  both,  all  truth  comes 
to  us  by  Revelation;  and,  when  Revelation  has  given  it, 
then  it  is  reasoned  on  for  confirmation  and  a|)plication. 

Those  ■whom  we  call  men  of  genius  in  knowledge  and 
art,  we  call  prophets  in  the  spiritual  world.  They  are 
seers,  who  see  directly  the  truths  of  God's  relation  to 
man,  and  of  man's  to  God.  They  declare  these  truths, 
they  do  not  attempt  to  prove  them:  they  let  them  prove 
themselves.  Some  receive  them  at  once,  others  say  tliey 
must  prove  them  by  reasoning;  but  they  can  only  be 
seen,  not  proved.  They  can  never  be  reasoned  upon 
Avith  any  practical  use  till  the  reasoner  has  felt  the  life 
and  seen  the  beauty  in  them.  And  it  will  be  hard  for 
a  man  who  thinks  intellect  the  first  and  greatest  power 
to  do  this,  for  they  generally  traverse  and  deny  the 
reasoning  of  centuries.  Naturally,  for  they  deny  the 
A'ery  existence  of  that  which  is  apparent,  that  very  thing 
on  which  the  intellect  only  employs  itself. 

All  this  is  illustrated  by  the  scene  and  the  parable  on 
the  main  subject  of  which  we  preached  last  Sunday. 
Long  theological  reasonings  had  convinced  the  Pliari- 
sees  and  Scribes  tliat  their  scheme  of  the  universe  of 
spirit  was  the  only  true  one.  It  followed  that  all  those 
who  did  not  agree  with  them  had  nothing  to  do  with 
God ;  that  all  those  who,  like  Christ,  disagreed  with 
their  opinions  and  practice,  that  all  those  whom  their 
society  rejected  for  certain  open  sins,  like  the  publicans 
and  sinners,  were  excluded.  They  thought  no  more  of 
them  as  individuals :  they  classed  them  into  one  mass. 


248 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


and  called  tliem  the  lost.  The  notion  that  God  had  to  do 
with  them  as  individuals,  tliat  he  must  consider  them  as 
such,  was  impossilile  to  their  intellect.  They  did  not 
even  try  to  prove  a  negative,  for  they  could  not  conceive 
a  negative.  Christ,  on  the  other  hand,  knew  of  tlieir 
reasonings,  but  tliouglit  them  contemptible.  Tlieir  world 
Avas  not  liis  world  at  all.  He  did  not  reason,  he  saw. 
And  this  is  what  he  saw :  he  saw  God  in  distinct  per- 
sonal relation  with  every  human  soul  present.  He  saw 
them  all  as  children,  each  with  a  separate  being,  and 
each  connected  with  God  and  dear  to  him  in  a  different 
way  from  the  others.  Each  was  a  living  personality 
linked  to  a  living  Father. 

That  was  the  invisible  fact  he  saw ;  and  it  cut  right 
across  all  the  long  lines  of  theology  which  the  Pharisees 
had  laid  down  after  years  of  intellectual  work  on  their 
notions  of  God.  And  no  wonder ;  for  it  is  plain,  sup- 
posing it  true,  that  it  is  not  a  truth  which  the  intellect 
can  reach  or  prove.  It  shines  by  its  own  light,  if  it 
shines  at  all.  Even  when  it  is  received,  all  the  intellect 
of  man  can  do  witli  it  is  to  apply  it,  not  to  prove  it.  It 
cannot  be  proved  in  the  Avay  of  reasoning. 

Indeed,  the  intellect  of  man,  working  out  its  reason- 
ings on  society,  on  tlie  races  of  mankind,  on  men's 
physical  and  moral  constitution,  has  always  arrived  at 
conclusions  which  either  directly  deny  that  truth,  or 
implicitly  deny  it.  It  must  have  struck  the  Pharisees 
as  ridiculous :  it  is  equally  absurd  to  a  number  of 
religioixs  sects  to-day,  who  cannot  conceive  that  the 
Roman  Catholic,  or  the  Unitarian,  or  the  atheist,  or  the 
open  sinner,  or  the  High  Churchman,  or  the  liberal  theo- 
logian, is  each  the  special  child  of  God.     They  are 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  SOUL  AND  GOD. 


249 


lost  classes,  not  individuals,  whom  God  is  seeking.  It 
contradicts  just  as  much  all  the  tendencies  of  ancient 
and  modern  philosophies,  and  all  the  tendencies  of  mod- 
ern social  and  physiological  science.  It  runs  counter  to 
all  that  scientific  thought,  which  makes  us  aiatomatons  or 
machines,  or  mixes  us  up  with  nature,  or  labels  us  only 
as  superior  animals.  It  is  equally  at  variance  with  all 
the  philosophies  which,  beginning  from  biology,  make  us 
only  the  creatures  of  development,  not  only  in  body,  but 
in  conscience,  thought,  and  feeling,  and  mingle  us  ujd 
with  the  whole  race,  which  say,  "Humanity  lives,  but 
its  parts  each  perish."  Yes :  it  is  altogether  unconform- 
able with  all  the  most  laborious  efforts  by  which  human 
reasoning,  working  in  its  favorite  daylight,  has  tried  to 
explain  what  we  are,  and  whence  we  come.  It  pro- 
claims the  distinct  individuality  and  eternity  and  divin- 
ity of  each  human  soul,  the  individual  and  separate 
preciousness  of  each.  It  isolates  each  man  with  God, 
though  in  another  point  of  view  it  unites  them  all  with 
him  and  one  another.  Pharisee  and  Scribe  might  say 
what  they  would,  lose  the  thought  of  the  sinner  in  the 
sinfulness  of  the  class,  see  in  the  publican  a  necessary 
outcast  (part  of  the  dross  l)y  purging  itself  of  Avhich 
the  gold  of  society  becomes  clear),  Christ,  the  Seer  of 
the  Invisible,  held  their  speech  as  vile,  and  saw — what? 
Saw  all  the  pity  of  the  earth,  and  the  Mighty  God,  and 
the  whole  host  of  heavenly  intelligences  concentrating 
their  eager  thought,  their  passionate  endeavor,  their  love 
and  interest,  and  their  joy  round  one  wandering  human 
soul.  "  What  man  of  you  having  a  hundred  sheej),  if 
he  lose  one  of  them.  .  .  .  Likewise,  I  say  unto  you,  there 
is  joy  in  the  ])resence  of  the  angels  of  heaven  over  one 
sinner  that  repenteth." 


250 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


That  is  a  revelation, —  one  of  the  invisible  truths 
which  we  believe,  because  it  exalts  our  whole  nature 
and  makes  beautiful  the  Avorld  of  man,  and  makes  God 
beautiful,  and  fills  our  life  with  joy  and  hope  and  self- 
sacrifice  and  faith  and  trust,  and  thrills  i;s  with  emotion 
in  which  we  rise  into  God, —  but  which  we  do  not  be- 
lieve, but  would  rather  deny,  when  we  investigate  the 
problem  of  mankind  by  the  help  of  the  intellect  alone. 

Christ  then  declares  here  the  absolute  distinctness  of 
individual  being.  But  on  what  ground?  On  this, —  that 
each  man  is  in  separate  and  unbreakable  union  with 
God.  There  is,  properly  speaking,  only  one  Being  in 
the  whole  universe,  only  one  self-existing  Being.  To 
conceive  that  seems  to  be  a  necessity  of  thought,  if  we 
do  not  deny  Being.  But  the  very  power  of  conceiving 
it  seems  to  prove  that  Ave  are  part  of  it.  We  could  not 
conceive  of  self-existent  Being,  were  we  not  conscious  our- 
selves of  Being;  and  to  be  conscious  of  Being  is  to  be 
conscious  of  God.  When  we  feel  that  we  are,  we  feel  God 
in  us,  or  rather  God  himself  becomes  in  us  self-conscious. 
A  jjart  of  him,  a  phase  of  his  beauty  or  knowledge  or  love, 
takes  form  in  us.  This  is  our  individuality ;  and  it  would 
be  i^erfect  in  us,  as  it  was  in  Christ,  if  we  could  feel,  as 
he  did,  that  all  our  thoughts  were  thoughts  of  God,  that 
all  our  words  and  actions  were  the  speech  and  deed  of 
God, —  if  we  could  say,  "  I  and  my  Father  are  one." 
Toward  that  we  are  struggling  all  our  lives ;  to  that,  at 
some  time  or  another,  eternity  will  bring  us.  And  the 
first  step  toward  it  is  to  believe  that  we  are  (by  our  very 
being,  and  because  we  are)  indissolubly  united  to  God; 
so  that,  if  we  wander  away  from  him,  he  must  seek  us, 
and  we  must  be  found  of  him.    And  the  must  consists 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  SOUL  AND  GOD.  251 


in  this:  that,  if  we  were  lost,  a  part  of  Infinite  Being 
would  be  missing  forever,  which  is  an  absurdity. 

There  exists,  then,  between  us  and  God  a  distinct  per- 
sonal relation,  different  in  each  person,  and  different 
forever.  No  one  can  ever  be  mixed  up  with  another,  no 
one  can  ever  ajoproach  God  or  be  approached  by  him,  in 
exactly  the  sa-me  way.  Of  all  the  infinite  number  of 
human  spirits,  there  has  not  been  one  whose  relation  to 
God  has  been  the  same.  In  one  aspect,  in  our  personal 
relation  to  God,  each  one  of  us  and  he  are  alone  in  the 
universe. 

Nothing  can  proclaim  more  strongly  or  create  more 
vividly  the  doctrine  of  human  individuality,  and  it  is  a 
Christian  creation.  It  has  run  into  great  evils :  in  its 
corruptions,  it  has  stimulated  i-eligious  selfishness,  and 
made  persecutions,  and  brought  forth  asceticism,  and 
created  a  license  of  thought  and  act  which  has  done 
harm,  or  seemed  to  do  harm.  But  the  evils  sink  into 
nothing  before  the  good  that  has  flowed  from  it.  It  has 
been  at  the  root  of  all  liberty  of  thought,  of  all  the 
struggles  for  political  liberty.  It  has,  in  claiming  and 
carrying  out  man's  right  to  develop  his  own  being,  been 
at  the  root  of  all  increase  of  knowledge,  of  the  arts,  of 
culture.  It  lias  also,  in  so  doing,  made  manifold  and 
complex,  with  a  million  individual  efforts,  all  the  simple 
ideas  and  feelings,  so  that  life  has  been  indefinitely  en- 
riched. It  has  placed  ideas  and  truths  in  a  thousand 
different  ways  before  mankind,  so  that  the  universe  of 
tiiought  and  feeling  is  more  infinitely  varied  than  the 
universe  of  nature,  and  human  life,  as  the  world  goes  on, 
grows  in  interest  and  delight.  In  its  infinite  production 
of  infinite  forms  of  sjjiritual  thought  and  emotion,  it  has 


252 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


made  iis  know  something  of  the  infinite  God.  It  is  an 
idea  which  is  the  salt  of  the  earth,  and  Ave  owe  its 
revelation  to  Christ. 

And  I  am  sure  it  was  wanted  and  is  wanted.  The 
tendency  of  society  is  to  make  men  all  of  one  pattern, 
to  repress  all  that  is  original,  to  tyrannize  over  all  indi- 
viduality. Imperialism  tries  to  force  all  thought  into 
harmony  with  the  will  of  one,  democracy  into  harmony 
with  the  will  of  the  many.  Religious  opinion  classes  us 
into  bad  and  good,  and  forgets  the  infinite  modifications 
of  both.  Political  party  wants  us  to  act  with  our  party, 
and  classes  us  by  jiarty  (justly  enough,  as  religion  also, 
for  its  own  purposes) ;  but  it  is  one  tendency  the  more 
against  individuality.  Science  tells  us  that  we  are  neces- 
saiy  results  of  all  that  has  gone  before,  that  we  could  not 
help  ourselves,  and  that  we  cannot  do  so  now.  Given 
such  a  body,  such  arrangement  toward  growth  of  atoms, 
such  a  disarrangement  in  them  as  we  call  hereditary 
disease,  we  will  be  this  or  that  infallibly.  That  wars 
against  individuality.  The  root  of  individuality  is  that 
we  have  a  living  will  within,  which  may  be  master,  and 
can  conquer  circumstances,  and  compel  development,  in 
spite  of  nature ;  which  is  not  the  effect,  but  the  master 
(by  right  of  a  different  and  higher  being  in  it),  of  our 
physical  nature.  Science  denies  that,  and  I  am  very 
sorry  for  those  who  deny  it.  Of  late,  it  has  gone  fur- 
ther ;  and  now  it  tends  to  make  us  think  of  ourselves  as 
only  necessary  parts  of  a  great  machine,  and  of  our 
actions  and  thoughts  as  mechanical, —  worse  still,  auto- 
matic, so  that  we  cannot  be  said  even  to  think  or  act 
truly  at  all.  No,  nor  even  to  feel.  A  mother's  love  for 
her  child  is  the  resultant  of  a  vast  number  of  past 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  SOUL  AND  GOD. 


253 


atomic  motions.  Our  love  for  one  anotlier  reduces  itself 
at  last  to  physical  arrangement,  our  sense  of  beauty  to 
the  same. 

What  is  the  use  of  trying  to  prove  all  these  things? 
They  never  can  be  proved ;  and,  if  they  seemed  to  be 
proved,  the  mass  of  men  —  tliank  God !  —  would  not  be- 
lieve them.  They  are  very  odious  in  themselves,  and  the 
efforts  to  ])rove  them  are  mere  waste  of  time  and  intel- 
ligence. It  is  almost  pitiable  to  see  all  this  hard  work 
spent  in  trying  to  prove  a  negative  the  belief  in  which 
arises  from  tliese  men  having  shut  one  of  their  eyes.  It 
is  more  than  pitiable,  it  is  an  evil  thing  to  override  the 
world  with  these  theories  ;  for  they  go  with  all  the  other 
tendencies  which  war  against  individuality.  We  cease 
to  be  persons :  we  are  made  by  these  theories  only  one  of 
the  forms  of  jihysical  nature. 

Then  there  are  all  the  philosopliers  of  to-day  who 
wither  the  individual  for  the  sake  of  the  race.  I  have 
almost  forsworn  any  more  usage  of  the  word  "  race." 
I  have  almost  thought  of  giving  up  any  more  jjreaching 
of  self-sacrifice  for  the  use  and  good  of  the  race  ;  and  I 
would  do  so,  were  it  not  to  be  as  provincial  as  they,  if 
I  were  to  refuse  to  look  at  their  side  of  the  shield  be- 
cause they  sit  fixed  in  such  ecstatic  contemplation  of  it 
as  to  be  unable  to  see  the  other,  which  asserts  the  impor- 
tance of  individual  being.  But,  though  one  does  not 
give  up  the  truths  which  lie  in  the  idea  that  we  must 
surrender  personal  inclinations  and  live  with  the  thought 
of  the  happiness  and  good  of  the  coming  humanity  as 
one  of  our  first  motives,  one  is  bound  at  the  same  time 
to  protest  against  the  whole  swallowing  the  parts.  The 
good  of  the  race  is  not  our  only  motive  for  life :  it  must 


254 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


be  coincident  with  careful  self-development  for  the  sake 
of  our  everlasting  connection  with  God.  That  is  seltish, 
they  cry.  No,  it  is  not ;  for  its  end  is  union  with  perfect 
love.  It  is  degrading  to  the  loftier  ideas,  they  cry.  Is 
it?  Compare  the  results  in  the  case  of  ideas.  This 
philosophy  has  lost  the  idea  of  God,  and  replaced  it  by 
the  idea  of  a  humanity  which  is  destined  to  perish  as 
a  whole,  and  every  part  of  which  jjerishes  forever,  each 
soul  dropping  day  by  day  into  eternal  night  for  the  sake 
of  those  who  also  are  to  di-op  into  an  abyss  of  nothing- 
ness. Is  that  notion  of  a  divinity  to  worship  loftier  than 
the  idea  of  God?  Is  that  notion  of  all-overmastering 
death,  of  the  final  destruction  of  all  the  thought  and  love 
and  beauty  and  knowledge  and  art  of  man,  loftier  than 
the  notion  of  their  immortal  continuance  and  activity? 
Oh,  no !  The  degradation  of  thought  is  on  the  side  of 
those  who,  in  withering  the  individual  for  the  race,  anni- 
hilate God  and  Immortality,  and  finally  wither  forever 
the  race.  Look  to  the  end :  for  what  have  they  sacri- 
ficed their  individuality?  They  have  sacrificed  it  for 
the  sake  of  a  humanity  which,  individually  and  collec- 
tively, ends  in  the  ridiculous  and  shameful  tragedy  of 
universal  annihilation. 

It  is  a  faith  inconceivably  dull  and  hopeless  and  sor- 
rowful ;  and  looking  on  it  all,  on  all  the  tendencies  which 
war  against  individual  being  and  against  the  strong  and 
creative  sense  of  it  which  is  active  in  man,  we  turn  with 
intense  jileasure  and  faith  to  the  revelation  by  Christ  of 
our  vivid  and  continuous  personality. 

And  we  need  not  be  downcast  about  it,  as  if  all  these 
tendencies  could  damage  it,  nor  need  we  think  that  man 
will  lose  this  precious  truth.    Art  and  Christianity  both 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  SOUL  AND  GOD.  255 


support  it.  Men  who  love  art  will  always  develop  them- 
selves just  as  they  please,  and  will,  if  philoso])hy  or 
society  attempt  to  limit  their  lives  by  rule,  rebel  against 
them  both ;  and,  if  science  attempt  to  prove  that  they 
love  or  enjoy  T)eauty  or  create  it  in  a  mechanical  way  or 
because  they  cannot  help  it,  laugh  at  and  desjiise  sci- 
ence. To  them  there  will  always  be  a  large  jjart  of  their 
liumanity,  and  that  in  their  minds  the  highest,  which  has 
nothing  to  do  with  knowledge,  and  which  transcends  the 
understanding,  and  thinks  its  pOAvers  and  its  work  com- 
monplace. 

Men  who  love  God,  and  who  feel  that  he  loves  them, 
who  know  that  a  direct  personal  relation  is  established 
between  him  and  them,  and  that  they  are  living  beings 
forever,  will  equally  and  still  more  strongly  resist  the 
tendencies  of  which  I  speak.  Religion,  when  it  means 
the  personal  tie  between  a  good  Father  who  loves  and 
a  child  whom  he  is  educating,  will  always  make  indi- 
vidual men.  Once  a  man  feels,  "  I  am  myself  God's,  and 
he  sijeaks  and  works  in  me  and  through  me,"  he  has  that 
Avithin  him  which  forces  him  to  make  himself  himself, 
which  saves  him  from  exev  losing  his  personality  or  be- 
lieving in  any  theory  which  directly,  or  by  implication, 
puts  it  aside.  Christianity  is  the  saving  of  the  individ- 
uality of  man ;  and  it  is  the  thing  hest  worth  saving,  not 
only  for  the  man  himself,  but  for  the  whole  race.  Yes, 
for  the  sake  of  the  wliole,  it  is  tlie  best  thing.  The  true 
good  of  the  whole  does  not  consist  in  the  repression,  but 
in  the  strengthening  of  the  individual.  The  true  life  of 
the  whole  does  not  consist  in  the  dying  of  the  parts,  but 
in  the  intensity  of  the  life  of  each  part.  The  true  growth 
of  the  race  does  not  consist  in  the  sacrifice  of  the  parts 


256 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


when  they  have  grown  for  sixty  years,  but  in  their  end- 
less continuance  in  growth. 

Nor  is  it  less  true  that  the  Christian  declaration  of 
indiAdduality  is  a  stronger  basis  of  union  among  men 
for  mutual  good  than  the  sacrifice  or  the  suicide  of  in- 
dividuality. The  true  basis  of  union  is  not  the  union 
of  dying  men  in  a  dying  whole,  but  the  union  of  living 
men  in  a  living  God.  The  true  basis  of  mutual  love  is 
not  the  union  of  men  who  die  daily  for  others  who  die 
also,  but  the  union  of  all  men  to  promote  the  loving  life 
of  all  in  God.  The  higliest  motive  for  love  of  our  fellow- 
men  and  for  universal  love  is  found  in  the  truth  that  we 
all  love  the  same  Father,  and  are  all  his  children.  That 
is  the  true  and  unconquerable  ground  of  the  brother- 
hood of  humanity;  and,  while  it  creates  infinite  self-sacri- 
fice, it  retains  individual  life  and  the  eternal  growth  of 
personality. 

To  hold  it,  to  live  by  it,  is  not  at  least  duU.  Dull, 
do  I  say?  It  transfigures  the  world,  and  makes  glorious 
our  own  life  and  all  the  lives  of  men.  No  one  who 
believes  it  feels  himself  a  machine :  he  feels  the  living 
God  within  him.  No  one  can  hold  it,  and  yield  to  the 
dull  monotony  of  society,  or  bend  himself  in  stupid 
compliance  to  the  rules  of  hfe  the  world  lays  down : 
he  who  lives  by  it  laughs  at  the  knowledge  which  pro- 
nounces his  feelings  necessary  or  his  thoughts  automatic. 
He  knows  better.  Nothing  will  convince  him  that  he  is 
a  congeries  of  atoms;  nothing  will  prove  to  him  that 
he  is  only  matter ;  nothing  will  make  him  think  that  he 
is  going  to  die.  All  that  he  has  thought  and  felt  and 
learned  and  done,  out  of  which  his  personality  has  been 
made,  will  be  a  j^art  of  him  for  ever,  and  bring  forth 


THE  INDIVIDUAL  SOUL  AND  GOD.  257 


new  fruit  in  a  new  life.  All  his  interests  will  remain, 
only  they  will  grow  more  intense  as  his  life  develops; 
and  they  will  grow  more  intense,  not  in  a  selfish  indi- 
viduality, but  in  one  which  will  realize  itself  in  losing 
self-consciousness,  in  living  in  all  things,  in  eternal  loving, 
and  in  the  joy  of  loving. 

And  what  he  believes  for  himself,  he  believes  for  all. 
He  sees  all  men,  like  himself,  as  living  persons,  growing, 
acting,  thinking,  rejoicing,  and  united  forever  into  one 
vast  and  loving  humanity.  For  through  the  infinite 
varieties  of  personalities  which  secure  progress  there 
runs  one  mighty  spirit,  the  united  spirit  of  a  common 
love  to  Him,  their  Father,  in  whom  they  live  and  move 
and  have  their  being,  who  sought  them  wandering  on 
earth,  who  would  not  lose  one  of  them,  and  who  now  has 
made  them  lie  down  in  green  pastures,  and  led  them 
beside  still  waters, —  one  flock  and  one  Shepherd. 


IMMOETALITY.-I. 


1871. 

"  For  he  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living ;  for  all  live  unto 
him." — Luke  xx.,  38. 

There  is  a  common  reason  for  the  perverse  denial  of 
immortality.  It  is  that  man,  when  living  solely  for  this 
world,  cannot  believe  in  a  world  to  come.  He  who  is 
blind  has  no  conception  of  the  stars.  He  who  is  with- 
out passion  cannot  believe  in  enthusiasm.  He  who  lives 
for  himself  cannot  believe  in  self-devotion. 

And  he  who  is  living  a  base  life  cannot  believe  in  a 
noble  one.  If  his  soul  is  plunged  in  the  sensual,  he  can- 
not realize  the  spiritual.  When  his  whole  energies  are 
given  to  this  world,  he  cannot  conceive  or  possess  the 
world  to  come.  There  are,  then,  thousands  of  men 
calling  themselves  Christians,  to  whom  immortal  life 
is  merely  a  name,  to  whom  their  little  life  is  indeed 
"rounded  with  a  sleep." 

Practically,  they  disbelieve  in  immortality.  They  may 
even  inwardly  go  further,  and  deny  it  to  themselves, 
should  the  question  intrude  upon  their  pleasure.  But 
they  do  not  deny  it  before  the  world.  Something  holds 
them  back  from  boasting  of  their  unbelief, —  a  conscious- 
ness that  they  have  thrown  aside  a  noble  thing,  a  regret 


IMMORTALITY. 


259 


which  will  steal  in,  that  now  they  can  no  longer  aspire 
beyond  their  present  life.  Unal)le  to  realize  immortality 
themselves,  they  yet  shrink  from  an  open  denial  of  it 
with  a  sense  of  shame  and  degradation.  But,  still  more, 
it  becomes  a  dreadful  thing  to  them,  if  they  have  any 
sensitive  reverence  left  for  the  sorrow  of  mankind,  to 
throw  doubt  upon  this  doctrine.  If  true,  it  is  so  pre- 
cious that  it  seems  the  race  might  bear  any  suffering, 
provided  it  was  its  fate  at  last.  If  it  is  only  held  to  be 
false,  and  not  proved  false,  a  man  may  well  doubt 
whether,  on  his  own  judgment  alone,  he  should  proclaim 
that  he  liolds  it  false.  There  is  a  devotion  to  one's  own 
truthfulness,  which  is,  in  certain  circumstances,  intoler- 
able cruelty  to  others  ;  and,  in  spiritual  matters,  where 
])vooi  has  not  been  attained,  unless  we  clearly  feel  that 
to  disclose  our  opinion  is  good  for  man,  we  are  only 
Pharisees  anxious  to  jilacard  our  honesty,  when  we 
loudly  proclaim  our  negations  in  }>ublic  or  in  jirivate. 
Truthfulness  without  charity  is  a  vice  and  not  a  virtue, 
as  love  without  truthfulness  to  moral  right  becomes 
idolatry. 

And  men  in  general  have  felt  this,  and  Avhen  they  dis- 
'  believed  in  iminortaiity  have  held  their  tongue. 

Moreover,  they  have  refrained,  because  they  insensibly 
felt  that  the  denial  of  immortality  is  practically  atheism. 
Clinging  still  to  the  notion  of  a  God,  they  connect  with 
him  their  ideas  of  right  and  wrong.  He  is  their  source, 
and  he  allots  their  sanctions.  But  no  one  can  lon<i  con- 
tinue  to  believe  in  and  to  love  a  God  who  is  assumed  to 
give  us  these  ideas,  and  then  so  forgets  all  about  his  gift 
and  his  creature  as  to  plunge  obedience  and  disobedience 
into  the  same  nothingness ;  or  who,  by  wilfully  annexing 


260 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


annihilation  to  all  human  lives  alike,  proclaims  that  in 
his  eyes  Tiberius,  rotting  to  a  shameless  deatli  in  Caprea, 
is  on  the  same  level  with  the  Saviour,  dying  on  Calvary 
for  the  Truth.  One  must  feel  that  such  a  God  would  be 
wicked.  He  would  deny  that  very  morality  whicli  we 
imagine  he  has  implanted  in  us.  We  should  be  obliged 
to  deny  his  existence,  in  order  to  retain  our  morality. 
To  disbelieve  in  immortality  is  to  disbelieve  in  God: 
with  the  fall  of  the  one,  falls  the  otlier. 

And  this  also  men  have  felt,  and  I  know  no  instance 
where  the  denial  of  immortality  has  not  led  directly  to 
atheism.  Men  did  not  like  to  realize,  by  putting  their 
denial  of  immortality  into  speech,  that  they  did  not 
practically  believe  in  God  at  all. 

But  these  motives  have  now  ceased  to  operate,  at  least 
to  the  same  extent.  Matters  have  taken  a  new  phase. 
Immortality  is  boldly  or  quietly  denied,  not  only  by  im- 
pure and  selfish  men,  but  by  men  of  culture  and  of  a 
high  morality.  It  is  accompanied,  as  it  must  necessarily 
be,  by  latent  or  overt  atheism,  as  a  cause  or  a  result  of 
the  denial. 

Wliat  are  the  jjarticular  causes  of  this  denial  at  pres- 
ent ?  One  is  the  jjrevalence  of  certain  theological  views 
which,  once  largely  accepted,  are  now  felt  to  be  repug- 
nant to  the  moral  sense.  Good  men,  some  among  the 
best  and  holiest  of  the  race,  have  held  these  views,  and 
lived  and  died  by  them.  And  it  is  a  strong  proof  that 
theological  opinions  have  no  necessary  connection  with 
goodness  that  these  men  have  been  so  good.  It  proves 
also  tliat  we  cannot  judge  the  morality  of  one  time,  so 
far  as  it  relates  to  the  morality  of  opinions,  by  the  mo- 
rality of  another  time.    For  few  doubted  then  of  the 


IMMORTALITY. 


261 


accordance  of  these  opinions  with  moral  right;  and  now 
many  persons  distinctl}',  and  it  seems  to  me  with  truth, 
reject  tliem  as  immoral. 

Among  these,  the  first  is  the  conception  of  God.  The 
conception  of  God's  nature  which  has  been  laid  before 
us  for  many  years  has  brought  many  men  at  last  to  turn 
away  from  it  with  dismay  and  ])ain.  Tliey  feel  that  the 
morality  of  tlie  pulpit  on  this  matter  lags  behind  the 
moral  feeling  of  society.  God  has  been  rejiresented, 
they  think,  and  I  tliink  with  them,  as  selfish,  as  seeking 
his  own  glory  at  the  expense  of  his  creatures'  welfare,  as 
jealous,  as  arbitrary,  as  indulging  in  favoritism,  as  con- 
demning all  for  the  sake  of  one,  as  insisting  on  forms  of 
temporary  im^Jortance  and  binding  them  forever  on  the 
conscience,  as  ruining  men  for  mistakes  in  doctrine,  as 
claiming  a  blind  submission  of  the  conscience  and  the 
intellect,  as  vindictive,  as  the  resolute  torturer  of  the 
greater  \)avt  of  the  human  race  by  an  everlasting  pun- 
ishment Avhich  ^presupposes  everlasting  evil ;  as,  in  one 
word,  anything  rather  than  the  Father  revealed  in  Jesus 
Christ.  Much  of  this  teaching  remains  still,  though  it  is 
presented  under  a  veil  by  Avhich  its  coarser  outlines  are 
modified.  It  is  accepted  by  many  who  either  do  not 
possess  a  strong  and  individual  sense  of  morality,  or  who 
do  not  think  or  prefer  not  to  think  on  the  matter,  lest 
they  should  shake  the  fabric  of  their  easy  faith  or  spoil 
their  religious  sentiment.  But  those  who  do,  and  whose 
moral  feelinc;  of  riffht  and  wronir  is  sane  and  strong, 
turn  away  revolted  from  a  God  of  this  character,  believe 
that  to  be  immortally  connected  with  him  would  be 
degradation,  even  the  very  horror  of  hell. 

But  not  having  been  taught  any  other  God,  and  being, 


262 


TAITH  AKD  FREEDOM. 


to  a  certain  degree,  culpably  lazy  about  examining  into 
the  teaching  of  Christianity  for  themselves,  they  fall 
back  on  their  last  resource,  and  disbelieve  in  immor- 
tality. "  It  is  better  to  perish  forever  than  to  be  the 
slave  of  such  a  ruler.  We  deny  his  existence,  and  we 
deny  the  immortality  he  is  said  to  promise.  But,  at  the 
same  time,  we  will  be  true  to  our  sense  of  right  and 
wrong ;  we  will  do  what  we  can  to  help  the  race ;  we 
will  have  our  immortality  in  the  memories  of  the  future, 
or  in  the  '  Being  of  Humanity ' :  but,  as  for  ourselves, 
let  us  cease,  for  we  could  not  live  with  the  Being  who 
has  been  described  to  us." 

Now,  I  believe  this  to  be,  and  no  one  need  mistake  my 
meaning,  a  really  healthy  denial  of  immortality,  for  it  is 
founded  on  the  denial  of  a  false  God.  And  so  far  as  it 
is  founded  on  the  assertion  of  a  true  morality,  so  far  it 
is,  though  these  men  do  not  confess  it  as  such,  the  asser- 
tion of  the  true  God.  The  God  who  has  been  preached 
to  men  of  late  has  now  become  to  us  an  idol,  that  is,  a 
conception  of  God  lower  tlian  we  ought  to  frame  ;  and 
a  revolt  against  that  conception  is  not  in  reality  a  revolt 
against  God,  it  is  a  jirotest  against  idolatry.  I  sympa- 
thize strongly,  then,  with  that  part  of  the  infidel  effort 
which  is  directed  against  these  immoral  views  of  God's 
character,  though  I  am  pained  by  the  manner  in  Avhich 
the  attack  is  conducted ;  and  it  is  my  hope  that  the 
attack  will  lead  our  theologians  to  bring  their  teaching 
lip  to  the  level  of  the  common  moral  feeling  on  this  sub- 
ject, and  to  reveal  God  as  the  Father  of  men  in  all  the 
profound  meaning  of  that  term.  The  belief  in  immor- 
tality will  then  return,  for  the  love  of  God  will  return  to 
men.    For  it  is  impossible  for  any  man  to  clearly  see  and 


IMMOETALITY. 


263 


believe  in  the  Father  as  revealed  in  Christ,  and  not  pas- 
sionately desire  to  draw  nearer  and  nearer  to  him  for- 
ever, and  not  feel  that  he  must  live  and  continue  to  live 
forever.  Therefore,  in  oi-der  to  restore  to  men  such  as 
I  have  described  a  belief  in  immortality,  we  must  restore 
to  them  a  true  conception  of  God.  This  is,  this  ought 
to  be,  the  main  work  of  the  preachers  and  teachers  of 
this  time.  For  as  long  as  the  morality  of  the  pulpit 
hangs  behind  the  morality  of  religious-minded  men, 
those  religious-minded  men  will  be  infidels. 

Again,  another  reason  for  the  prevalent  disbelief  in 
immortality  is  the  selfish  theory  of  religious  life.  That 
theory  has  almost  died  away  among  religious  teachers, 
but  the  reaction  against  it  still  continues.  We  havie 
given  it  up,  but  it  is  still  imputed  to  us  by  our  infidel 
ojjponents. 

It  is  said  that  we  are  to  do  good,  in  order  to  be  re- 
warded ;  and  to  avoid  evil,  lest  we  should  be  punished. 
In  this  doctrine,,  badly  stated  as  it  has  been,  there  is 
nothing  which  ap^ieals  to  the  nobler  feelings  of  man. 
Selfish  gratification  and  selfish  fear  are  alone  addressed. 
It  is  a  direct  appeal  to  that  part  of  our  being  which  is 
the  meanest,  as  if  that  Avere  the  part  which  could  most 
readily  accej^t  religion.  It  connects  us  to  God  by  bonds 
of  self-interest,  as  a  servant  to  a  patron,  not  by  bonds  of 
love,  as  a  child  to  a  father. 

Against  this  theory  many  rose  in  revolt,  declaring  that 
according  to  it  the  desire  of  immortal  life  was  a  selfish 
desire,  and  proposing,  as  an  escape  from  this  selfishness, 
that  men  should  live  a  noble  life  without  hopes  for  the 
future.  They  set  this  forth  as  the  highest  form  of  self- 
sacrifice.    "  Live,"  they  said,  "  doing  good,  without  hope 


264 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


of  reward,  only  for  the  sake  of  good ;  hating  and  fighting 
"witli  evil,  because  evil  is  degradation,  not  because  it  is 
punished.  You  cannot  do  this,  if  you  accept  the  Chris- 
tian doctrine  of  immortal  life.  For  it  nourishes  selfish- 
ness. It  locks  a  man  up  in  care  for  his  own  safety.  On 
the  highest  religious  grounds,  we  deny  the  doctrine  of 
immortality  as  prejudicial  to  a  noble  and  pious  life." 

And,  if  that  were  really  the  Christian  doctrine,  they 
would  do  well  in  denying  it,  and  we  might  be  driven 
to  accept  their  fine-sounding  theory  of  self-sacrifice. 

But  we  meet  it,  first,  by  a  blunt  contradiction  of  the 
false  representation  of  Christianity,  from  which  it  has 
sprung  as  a  reaction.  Christianity  says  precisely  what 
these  men  say,  only  not  in  so  abstract  a  manner.  It 
asks  us  to  do  good,  not  for  the  sake  of  abstract  good,  but 
for  the  sake  of  being  like  to  God,  the  personal  goodness. 
That  is  not  a  selfish  doctrine,  nor  does  it  lead  to  selfish- 
ness. It  urges  us  to  avoid  evil,  lest  we  should  become 
unlike  God,  in  whose  image  we  are,  and  whose  temjjle 
we  become.  That  is  not  a  selfish  motive.  It  takes  us 
out  of  self,  and  makes  our  life  consist  in  living  in  God, 
and,  because  he  lives  in  all  the  race,  in  living  through 
him  in  the  interests  and  lives  of  all  our  brother-men. 
That  is  not  a  selfish  doctrine.  Its  reward  is  not  a  selfish 
reward :  it  is  the  reward  of  being  made  unselfish,  be- 
cause made  like  to  God.  "  Your  rcAvard,"  said  Christ, 
"shall  be  great,  for  ye  shall  be  the  children  of  your 
Father " ;  that  is,  resembling  your  Father  in  character. 

Nor  does  Christianity  appeal  to  fear  of  jjunishment, 
but  to  the  feeling  of  love.  It  does  not  say  menacingly, 
"Thou  shalt  not  kill,  or  steal,  or  be  an  idolater"  :  it  says, 
"Love  the  Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  soul,  and  thy 


IMMORTAIJTY. 


265 


neighbor  ns  thj'self,"  for  then,  shu  e  tlioii  lovest,  thou 
eanst  not  injure  thy  neiuliboi-,  or  sin  against  God.  It 
rejects  fear,  as  having  torment,  as  belonging  to  a  spirit 
of  bondage,  not  a  sjairit  of  life.  It  apj^eals  throughout 
to  self-snorifice,  self-devotion.  It  asks  us  to  live  by  all 
that  is  noblest  in  us,  to  ^\'alk  Avortliy  of  our  high  voca- 
tion,—  likeness  to  Christ,  who  died  for  men.  It  does 
not  i)roelaini  the  selfish  doctrine  on  ■which  this  denial  of 
immortality  is  founded. 

But  it  is  plain  that  it  does  declare  rewards  and  punish- 
ments; and  an  objector  may  say  that,  even  on  the  sup- 
position that  Christianity  does  not  really  appeal  to  the 
selfish  feeling,  yet  the  introduction  of  the  element  of 
rewards  has  in  itself  a  tendency  to  produce  selfish  feeling. 

Certainly,  we  answer,  if  the  rewards  are  material,  if 
they  belong  in  any  way  to  the  selfish  part  of  our  nature. 
But  if  they  have  nothing  to  do  with  that,  but  with  that 
part  of  our  being  which  lives  by  the  denial  of  self  and 
the  jiractice  of  self-devotion,  if  they  are  purely  spiritual 
rewards,  to  long  after  them  is  not  sellish,  but  the  high 
duty  of  the  soul.  God  says,  "Do  good,  and  you  are 
rewarded."  How?  By  an  increased  power  of  doing 
good.  Is  it  selfish  to  desire  that?  God  says,  "Love  me, 
love  your  brother-men  Avith  all  your  heart,  and  you  shall 
be  rewarded."  How?  By  deeper  capability  of  loving. 
Is  it  selfish  to  desire  that  ?  The  true  statement  of  the 
doctrine  of  rewards  at  once  dissipates  this  absurd  accu- 
sation of  selfishness. 

To  look  forward  to  this  increase  of  the  spiritual  life, 
to  this  daily  growth  of  unselfishness,  and  to  live  and  act 
in  the  hope  of  that  and  for  its  sake, —  it  is  ridiculous  to 
call  that  a  selfish  theory.    To  do  good,  and  to  think  of 


266 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


the  reward  of  being  loved  by  God  and  of  becoming  more 
like  to  God,  is  no  moi-e  a  selfish  life  than  to  spend  one's 
whole  life  for  one's  country,  and  to  rejoice  in  the  idea  of 
being  loved  by  one's  country,  and  becoming  more  worthy 
of  her  love,  is  selfish  for  the  high-hearted  soldier.  A  life 
of  love,  lived  in  the  hope  of  the  rcAvard  of  becoming 
more  capable  of  love,  does  not  encourage  in  the  heart  a 
single  germ  of  sclfisliness. 

And  as  to  immortal  life  itself,  if  you  choose  to  sepa- 
rate it  for  a  moment  from  these  spiritual  qualities  of 
love  and  jmrity  and  truth  (which  in  us  are  immortal  life), 
the  desire  of  life,  keener,  purer,  more  abounding,  cannot 
be  selfish;  for  it  is  a  natural  appetite  of  the  human 
sj^irit. 

Now,  the  lawful  gratification  of  api^etite  is  not  selfish. 
No  one  is  so  aljsurd  as  to  say  that  the  desire  of  food  or 
drink  when  we  are  hungry  or  thirsty,  for  the  sake  of 
relieving  these  apjjetites,  is  a  selfish  desire.  No  one  says 
that  the  desire  of  knowledge  for  the  sake  of  knowing  is 
a  selfish  desire.  It  is  a  noble  ajjpetite  of  the  intellect. 
Yet  here,  when  we  get  into  the  realm  of  the  spirit  of 
man,  we  are  told  that  the  desire  of  immortal  life  for  the 
sake  of  life,  and  that  acting  for  the  purpose  of  being  a 
partaker  of  tliat  life,  is  selfish,  and  encourages  selfish- 
ness. It  is  a  greater  absurdity  than  the  others.  Desire 
of  life  is  the  most  natural  appetite  of  the  sjiirit,  and  we 
are  in  desperate  peril  of  becoming  truly  selfish  when  we 
crush  it,  or  caricature  it,  or  attempt  to  live  without  it. 

Indeed,  that  is  often  the  residt.  I  do  not  speak  now 
of  those  who  replace  the  doctrine  of  personal  immor- 
tality by  the  mystical  and  impractical  notion  of  an 
immortality  in  the  race,  for  these  at  least  allow  of  the 


IMMORTALITY. 


267 


existence  of  a  longing  and  ])as.sion  for  immortality,  of 
■which  they  are  bound  to  take  notice ;  nor  of  those  who 
frankly,  on  scientific  grounds,  avow  that  they  do  not 
believe  in  the  existence  of  a  spirit  in  man  apart  from  his 
mortal  frame,  but  of  those  who  quietly,  on  the  fantastic 
ground  of  the  selfisliness  of  this  passion,  deprive  the 
race  of  one  of  the  mighty  hopes  which  make  us  men. 

On  the  whole,  mankind  resents  this,  and  resents  it 
justly.  It  separates  itself  from  these  men  who  have 
separated  themselves  from  the  common  longing.  They 
feel  their  isolation,  and  retire  from  the  world.  Or  they 
become  angry  with  tlie  world,  and  mock  and  scorn  its 
asijirations.  Or  they  seclude  themselves  and  their  theory 
in  Pharisaic  dignity,  and  thank  Fate  that  they  are  not 
as  other  men  are,  blinded  by  superstition,  but  seated 
aloft  in  the  clear  light  of  unapproachable  self-sacrifice, 
the  martyrs  of  a  grand  idea. 

The  end  of  it  all  is  that  they  become  as  self-involved 
as  the  Simeon  Stylites  of  the  poet,  as  self-righteous,  and 
as  self-conceited.  Aiming  at  the  utter  denial  of  self, 
they  arrive  at  the  utter  assertion  of  self. 

And  this  result  follows,  because  the  self-sacrifice  put 
forward  by  tlicse  theorists  is  not  self-sacrifice  at  all,  but 
the  immolation  of  the  best  and  most  aspiring  part  of  our 
nature.  They  give  up  what  is  good,  and  call  it  self- 
sacrifice.  It  is  an  inversion  of  tlie  truth,  for  self-sacrifice 
is  surrendering  what  is  -\\-rong,  or  jileasurable,  for  the 
sake  of  good  to  others.  There  are  certain  necessary 
elements  in  an  act  of  true  self-sacrifice.  It  must  be  in 
itself  a  moral  act,  and  distinctly  felt  as  such  by  the  actor, 
else  one  throws  the  halo  of  self-surrender  over  evil :  it 
must  not  be  merely  instinctive,  but  done  with  a  rational 


268 


.FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


belief  that  it  will  produce  good ;  and  the  doer  of  it  must 
not  give  up  or  weaken  any  clement  in  his  natin-e,  the 
existence  and  strong  existence  of  which,  even  in  a  single 
individual,  is  of  importance  for  the  progress  of  the  race. 
It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to  crucify  a  high  desire  for  the 
sake  of  attaining  an  ideal.  It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to  give 
up  what  is  true  for  the  sake  of  being  more  true.  That 
is  as  absurd  as  giving  uji  one  friend  for  the  sake  of  being 
a  more  perfect  friend  to  anotlier.  You  do  not  gain,  but 
lose  so  much  of  poM'er  of  friendship.  And  those  who 
surrender  the  hope  of  immortal  life,  for  the  sake  of  being 
freed  from  all  thought  of  self,  do  not  gain  the  self-sacri- 
ficing heart :  they  only  take  away  one  of  the  motive- 
powers  of  self-sacrifice. 

On  the  whole,  we  want  clearer  notions  of  self-sacrifice. 
There  are  some  things  we  have  no  right  to  give  up.  It 
is  not  self-sacrifice  to  surrender  our  conscience,  though 
we  might  save  a  whole  nation  by  doing  so.  It  is  not 
self-sacrifice  to  be  false  to  our  own  soid,  for  the  sake  of 
those  we  love,  as  the  martyr  would  have  been,  had  he 
worshipi3ed  Jupiter,  because  his  father  and  mother  wept 
at  his  feet,  and  were  left  to  ruin  by  his  death.  It  is  not 
self-sacrifice  to  commit  suicide,  as  in  some  novels,  for  the 
sake  of  the  hapj^iness  of  others.  It  is  not  self-sacrifice 
to  marry  one  who  loves  you,  because  you  do  not  wish 
him  or  her  to  suffer,  Avhen  you  do  not  love  in  return:  it 
is  self-destruction.  It  is  not  self-sacrifice  to  cast  aside 
immortality,  that  it  may  not  vitiate  by  a  taint  of  self 
your  doing  good.  It  is  spiritual  suicide, —  nay,  more, 
there  is  a  hidden  selfishness  in  it;  for  he  who  does  this 
is  endeavoring  to  secure  liis  own  ideal  at  the  expense  of 
the  race  of  men  whom  he  deprives  of  the  hope  which 


IMMOKTALITY. 


269 


more  tlian  all  else  has  oliocrod  and  strengthened  them  in 
the  battle  agamst  evil.  It  is  selfish  to  wilfully  shut  our 
eyes  to  this,  that  we  may  indulge  a  fancy  of  our  own. 

For  the  sake  of  right  reason,  if  not  for  the  sake  of 
God,  do  not  let  yourself  l)e  tricked  out  of  your  belief  in 
immortality  by  a  subtile  seeming  good,  by  an  appeal  to  a 
false  idea  of  self-sacrifice.  First  cast  aside  the  theology 
which  has  given  rise  to  tliis  twisted  notion  of  self-sacri- 
fice, and  then  Avith  a  clear  judgment  you  will  recognize 
that  the  true  self-sacrifice  is  not  incompatible  with  the 
reward  of  that  immortal  life  which  is  in  itself  nothing 
less  than  the  life  of  self-sacrifice.  Your  smile  will  then 
be  a  quiet  smile,  when  men  tell  you  to  give  up  longing 
for  immortality  because  it  is  a  selfish  ground  of  action. 
What,  you  will  say,  is  it  selfish  to  hope  to  be  forever 
unselfish?  Is  it  selfish  to  desire  to  be  at  one  with  the  life 
of  Him  who  finds  his  life  in  giving  himself  away?  Is  it 
selfish  to  aspire  to  that  fuller  life  which  is  found  in  living 
in  the  lives  of  others  by  watchful  love  of  them  ?  These 
are  my  rewards,  and  every  one  of  them  ministers  to  and 
secures  unselfishness. 

Lastly,  there  is  another  reason  for  the  denial  of  im- 
mortality, which  arises  from  theological  teaching.  It  is 
the  extremely  dull  and  limited  notions  of  the  future 
life.  We  have  too  much  transferred  to  our  northern 
Christianity  and  our  active  existence  of  thought  the 
Oriental  conceptions  of  heaven  drawn  from  the  book  of 
the  Revelation.  We  have  taken  them  literally  instead 
of  endeavoring  to  win  the  spiritual  thoughts  of  which 
these  descriptions  are  but  the  form.  And,  literally  taken, 
they  are  wholly  unsuitable  to  our  Teutonic  nature.  They 
make  the  future  life  seem  to  our  minds  a  lazy  dreamy 
existence,  in  which  all  that  is  quickest  and  most  vital  in 


270 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


US  would  Stagnate,  in  which  all  that  makes  life  interest- 
ing, dramatic,  active,  would  perish.  It  is  not  needless 
to  notice  this.  For  it  is  astonishing  how,  even  among 
men  who  should  have  known  better,  the  early  childish 
conceptions  of  heaven  remain  as  realities.  I  have  met 
active-minded  working-people  and  cultivated  men  who 
looked  forward  with  dislike  to  death,  because  they 
dreaded  the  dulness  of  the  next  world.  Till  we  have  a 
higher,  more  human  conception  of  the  future  life  than 
that  usually  given,  we  shall  not  restore  to  society  a  joy- 
ful belief  in  immortality.  Our  theology  wants  a  picture 
of  the  world  to  come,  fitted  to  meet  a  larger  and  a 
worthier  ideal  of  humanity.  If  we  wish  to  awake 
interest  in  the  future  life,  we  must  add  to  the  merely 
spiritual  ideas  of  uncultivated  teachers  others  which 
will  minister  food  to  the  imagination,  the  intellect,  the 
social,  and  national  instincts  of  man ;  nay,  more,  if  we 
believe  in  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  others  which 
minister  to  tlie  delight  of  the  purified  senses. 

We  need  only  go  back  to  the  revelation  of  Christ  to 
gain  tlie  true  ground  of  this  wider  conception.  He 
revealed  God  as  each  man's  Father.  Now,  the  highest 
work  of  a  father  is  education,  and  the  end  of  God's  edu- 
cation of  man  is  the  finished  and  harmonious  develop- 
ment of  all  his  powers.  If  in  the  future  life  our  intellect 
or  imagination  is  left  undevelo2:>ed,  it  is  not  education, 
and  we  cannot  conceive  of  a  jierfect  fatherhood.  If  all 
our  powers  have  not  there  their  work  and  their  ojjpor- 
tunities  of  exj^ansion,  the  full  idea  of  fatherhood  is  lost. 
If  any  of  our  true  work  here  on  earth  is  fruitless  work, 
and  does  not  enable  us  to  produce  tenfold  results  in  a 
future  life,  no  matter  what  that  work  may  be,  work  of 
the  artist,  historian,  politician,  merchant,  tlien  the  true 


IMMORTALITY.  271 

conception  of  education,  and  therefore  of  God's  father- 
hood, is  lost. 

No,  brethren,  we  rest  on  this:  "I  go  to  prepare  a  place 
for  you."  A  place  is  prepared  for  each  one  of  us ;  a 
place  fitted  to  our  distinct  character;  a  separate  work 
fitted  to  develop  that  character  into  jierfection,  and  in 
the  doing  of  which  we  shall  have  the  continual  delight 
of  feeling  that  we  are  growing, —  a  ])lace  not  only  for  us, 
but  for  all  our  peculiar  powers.  Our  ideals  shall  become 
more  beautiful,  and  minister  continually  to  fresh  aspira- 
tion, so  that  stagnation  will  be  impossible.  Feelings  for 
which  we  found  no  food  here  shall  there  be  satisfied 
with  work,  and  exercised  by  action  into  exquisite  per- 
fection. Faint  jiossibilities  of  our  nature,  which  came 
and  went  before  us  here  like  swallows  on  the  wing, 
shall  there  be  grasped  and  made  realities.  The  outlines 
of  life  shall  be  filled  tip,  the  rough  statue  of  life  shall  be 
finished.  We  shall  be  not  only  spiritual  men,  but  men 
complete  in  Christ,  the  perfect  flower  of  humanity. 

And  this  shall  be  in  a  father's  home,  where  all  the 
dearest  dreams  of  home-life  shall  find  their  happy  ful- 
filment ;  in  a  perfect  society,  where  all  the  charming 
interchange  of  thought,  and  giving  and  receiving  of  each 
other's  good,  which  make  our  best  happiness  on  earth, 
shall  be  easier,  freer,  purer,  more  intimate,  more  spirit- 
ual, more  intellectual ;  and,  lastly,  in  a  ])erfect  polity, 
"fellow-citizens  with  the  saints,"  where  all  the  interests 
of  large  national  life  shall  find  room  and  opportunities 
for  development  ;  and,  binding  all  together,  the  omni- 
present Spirit  of  love,  goodness,  truth,  and  life,  Avhom 
we  call  God,  and  whom  we  know  in  Jesus  Christ,  shall 
abide  in  us,  and  we  in  him,  "for  he  is  not  a  God  of 
the  dead,  but  of  the  living;  for  all  live  unto  him." 


IMMOETALITT.-II. 


1871. 

"  For  he  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living ;  for  all  live 
unto  him." —  Luke  xx.,  38. 

It  is  remarkable  that  the  theological  questions  ■which 
are  now  most  widely  spoken  of  are  no  longer  those 
which  presuppose  a  general  confession  of  Christianity, 
but  other  and  deeper  questions  altogether, —  questions 
the  very  discussion  of  which  shows  how  strongly  the 
foundations  of  the  religious  world  are  moved.  It  is 
now  frequently  asked  whether  there  be  a  God  or  not, 
whether  immortality  be  not  a  mere  idol  of  the  imagi- 
nation. It  is  plain,  when  society  has  got  down  to  these 
root  questions,  that  modern  theology  in  its  past  form 
has  no  longer  the  power  to  do  its  work,  otherwise  these 
things  would  be  axioms.  It  is  plain  that,  if  Christianity 
is  to  keep  its  ground,  it  must  go  through  a  revolution, 
and  present  itself  in  a  new  form  to  the  minds  of  men. 

It  is  the  characteristic  excellence  of  Christianity  that 
it  is  able  to  do  this.  For,  with  regard  to  his  own  relig- 
ion, the  saying  of  Christ  remains  forever  true,  that  say- 
ing which  declares  the  continued  progress  of  revelation, 
—  "I  have  yet  many  things  to  say  to  you,  but  ye  cannot 
bear  them  now." 


IMMORTALITY. 


273 


But  when  the  time  draws  near  for  the  growth  of 
Christian  thought  around  a  new  idea,  and  for  the  re- 
generation of  Christian  practice  by  the  life  which  flows 
from  the  fresh  thought,  the  change  is  heralded  by  the 
appearance,  sometimes  in  infidel  teaching,  sometimes  in 
isolated  religious  teachers,  of  scattered  and  disconnected 
truths,  which  do  not  naturally  belong  to  the  old  form  of 
religion,  or  which  are  sot  uj)  in  opposition  to  it.  Being 
half-truths  or  isolated  truths,  they  point  forward  to  a 
complete  form  which  shall  suj^iilement  and  include  them. 
At  the  present  day,  many  of  the  new  truths,  or  rather  of 
the  extensions  of  the  old  truths,  M  hich  Christianity  will 
have  to  absorb,  are  to  be  found  in  infidel  teaching,  com- 
bined with  a  rejection  of  immortality  and  of  the  being 
of  a  God.  We  shall  search  for  those  truths  to-day,  and 
try  to  show  that  without  the  doctrine  of  immortality 
they  have  no  lasting  value,  but  that  in  union  with  it 
they  are  of  real  importance,  and  ought  to  be  claimed  for 
Christianity. 

But  first  let  us  examine  for  a  moment  what  is  taking 
place  at  present  with  regard  to  Christian  and  infidel 
teaching. 

During  the  time  when  an  old  form  of  Christian 
thought  is  slowly  jjassing  away,  having  exhausted  all  it 
had  to  give,  it  repeats  again  and  again  with  the  gar- 
rulity of  old  age  the  j^hrases  which  in  its  youth  were  the 
expressions  of  living  thought  and  feeling.  They  fitted 
then  the  wants  of  men,  and  they  were  the  means  by 
which  religious  life  advanced  and  religious  truth  devel- 
ojjed.  But,  being  naturally  cast  into  a  fixed  intellectual 
system,  they  remained  behind  the  movement  tliey  be- 
gan :  they  made  men  grow,  but  men  outgrew  them,  for 


274 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


systems  become  old,  but  mankind  is  always  young.  It 
follows  then,  almost  of  necessity,  that,  when  a  certain 
point  in  this  j^rogress  is  reached,  there  will  be  a  strong 
reaction  against  the  old  form  of  Christianity,  and  the 
reaction  will  contain  the  assertion  of  that  which  is  want- 
ing in  the  dying  phase,  and  a  protest  against  its  weak- 
ness. Both  the  assertion  and  the  protest  will  often  be 
combined  with  infidel  teaching ;  for  there  will  be  many 
who,  seeing  these  garments  of  Christianity  rotting  away, 
and  hearing  them  declared  to  be  Christianity  itself,  will 
believe  the  declaration,  and  attack  not  only  the  gar- 
ments, but  the  living  spirit  itself  which  is  waiting  to  be 
reclothed.  The  infidel  teaching  on  religious  subjects  will 
then  consist  of  two  parts,  a  negative  and  a  positive  part. 
The  negative  will  deny  or  ignore  all  Christian  truth  as 
then  taught :  the  positive  will  assert  some  ideas  neces- 
sary for  the  present  time,  and  answering  to  some  of  its 
religious  wants.  It  is  the  business  of  Christian  teachers, 
while  setting  aside  the  negations,  to  claim  as  their  own 
those  positive  ideas  which,  though  developed  in  a  for- 
eign soil,  are  yet  derived  from  Christian  seeds.  They 
will  say,  "We  have  learned  from  our  enemies  :  they  have 
told  us  what  the  age  desires.  In  answer  to  that  desire, 
they  have  unwittingly  fallen  back  upon  Cliristian  ideas 
and  expanded  them,  led  unconsciously  thereto  by  the 
ever-working  spirit  of  God.  Those  expansions  are  ours : 
we  did  not  see  them  before,  but  we  claim  them  now." 
If  we  do  that,  the  infidelity  of  the  infidel  —  that  is,  his 
negations  —  will  slowly  share  the  fate  of  all  negations ; 
and  the  scattered  truths  he  teaches,  taken  into  Chris- 
tianity, find  in  it  their  vital  union  with  all  its  past,  and 
form  stepping-stones  for  its  future  growth. 


IMMORTALITY. 


275 


Tliis  is  the  general  sketch  of  tlie  movement  in  which 
we  are  now  involved.  We  are  at  that  point  in  it  in 
which  we  are  beginning  to  recognize  that  the  infidel  is 
teaching  a  few  truths  which  naturally  belong  to  Chris- 
tianity. But  Ave  have  not  yet  fully  assimilated  those 
truths,  or  established  their  connection  Avith  those  AA'^e 
possess.  Not  till  tiiat  is  done  Avill  our  Avider  form  of 
Christian  thought  be  completed. 

Let  us  take  the  two  main  forms  of  infidelity  which  pre- 
vail,— secularism  and  Comtism, —  the  first  Avidely  spread 
among  the  Avorking-classes ;  the  second  —  the  religion  of 
positivism,  to  call  it  by  its  other  name  —  held  by  a  small 
number  of  the  cultivated  class. 

Both  of  these  hold  in  them  ideas  Avhich  ought  to  be 
ours.  It  is  said  that  these  ideas  are  foreign  to  Chris- 
tianity. On  the  contrai-y,  I  believe  that  they  are  the 
children  of  Christianity  born  in  an  alien  land,  and  more- 
over that  they  fit  more  harmoniously  into  the  Christian 
system  than  into  the  system  Avith  Avhich  they  are  noAV 
united. 

Of  the  coarse,  brutal  secularism,  Avhich  does  nothing 
but  deny  and  bluster,  I  have  nothing  to  say  ;  but  there 
is  another  form  of  it,  Avhich  does  not  so  much  deny  as 
say:  "We  do  not  kno\\- :  there  may  be  another  life  to 
come,  there  may  be  a  God,  but  Ave  cannot  jn-ove  these 
things.  They  are  wrapped  in  jnystery :  they  leave  us 
in  the  mystery.  God,  if  there  be  a  God,  gives  no  an- 
sAver  to  us.  All  the  feelings  Avhich  Ave  are  asked  to 
feel  about  him,  all  the  hopes  and  fears  Avhich  cluster 
round  the  doctrine  of  immortality,  only  hinder  our  prac- 
tical work,  make  us  think  of  ourseh'es,  and  not  of  our 
duty :  nay,  more,  they  do  harm  ;  for  more  suffering  and 


276 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


evil  have  come  upon  the  race,  more  cruelty  and  more 
hindrances  to  jirogress  have  arisen  from  these  notions 
than  from  any  others.  We  will  ])ut  them  utterly  aside, 
and  act  by  faith  in  other  ideas." 

This  is  their  denial,  and  even  from  this  we  may  learn 
much.  For  the  God  the  conscientious  secularist  denies 
is  the  God  of  whom  we  spoke  last  Svmday, —  a  God  of 
arbitrary  will,  who  makes  salvation  de2)end  on  assent 
to  certain  systems  of  theology,  and  men  responsible  for 
sins  committed  before  they  were  born ;  who  dooms  the 
greater  ])art  of  the  race  to  eternal  wickedness.  And  the 
immortality  he  does  not  care  for  is  an  immortality  based 
on  the  selfish  doctrine  of  which  we  also  sjjoke,  Avhich  by 
working  on  the  fears  and  greed  of  men  jiroduces  jjerse- 
cution  in  public  and  continual  brooding  on  self  in  pri- 
A'ate ;  above  all,  which  destroys  unconscious  aspiration. 
Looking  at  this,  we  learn  our  faults.  "We  are  driven  back 
to  that  concejition  of  a  Father  which  Christ  revealed. 
We  are  taught  to  preach  a  loftier  of  the  nature  of 
immortal  life.  We  turn  and  say  to  the  secularist,  "  The 
God  whom  you  reject,  we  reject :  the  immortality  you 
deny,  we  deny  also." 

But  we  may  learn  much  more  from  what  he  asserts 
as  his  religion.  He  believes  that  nature  contains  all 
things  necessary  for  the  guidance  of  mankind ;  that  duty 
consists  in  a  steadfast  pursuit,  according  to  the  laws  of 
nature,  of  results  tending  to  the  happiness  of  the  race; 
and  that  in  doing  that  duty  he  becomes  happy.  His 
God  is  duty,  his  Bible  is  nature,  his  heaven  is  in  the 
happiness  of  man  and  the  progress  of  mankind  to  per-, 
fection.  His  sin  is  in  violating  natural  laws,  because 
such  a  violation  is  sure  to  bring  evil  on  men. 


IMMORTALITY. 


277 


The  two  main  ideas  running  through  tliis  we  ought  to 
learn  to  make  more  prominent  in  Christianity,  the  idea 
that  man  lias  a  higher  duty  to  mankind  than  to  himself, 
the  idea  of  the  progress  of  the  race  to  perfection.  The 
first  is  distinctly  contained  in  the  whole  sj^irit  of  the  life 
of  Christ,  the  second  in  the  Cliristian  conception  of 
God's  Fatherhood.  But  there  is  no  doubt  that  our 
Christianity  has  not  sufficiently  dwelt  on  these  thoughts, 
and  that  the  Christianity  of  tlie  future  must  absorb 
them.  We  accept  then,  with  thankfulness,  this  teach- 
ing from  without;  but  we  say  that  to  fulfil  it  in  action, 
and  to  bring  it  home  to  the  hearts  and  lives  of  men, 
there  must  be  added  to  it  the  Christian  ideas  of  God  and 
of  immortality.  The  absence  of  these  deprives  the  sec- 
idarist  of  any  certain  ground  for  that  reverence  for 
human  nature  and  for  that  faith  in  ultimate  perfection 
without  which  there  can  be  no  joyous  self-sacrifice  for 
man,  no  unfaltering  work  for  his  j^rogress.  Their  ab- 
sence deprives  him  of  the  mighty  impulse  which  arises 
from  a  profound  love  for  an  all-loving  person,  and  re- 
places it  by  the  weaker  im2:)ulse  which  is  born  of  love  to 
an  abstraction  called  duty,  or  to  a  "humanity"  which  is 
always  disappointing  the  love  which  is  lavished  on  it, 
till  our  love,  feeding  on  imperfection,  becomes  itself  en- 
feebled or  corrupt.  Their  absence  deprives  him  of  the 
idea  which  more  than  all  others  makes  a  religious  society 
coherent,  that  all  its  members  are  held  together  by  the 
indwelling  in  each,  and  in  the  whole,  of  one  personal 
spirit  of  good ;  of  the  idea  which  makes  work  for  human 
progress  persistent,  that  all  work  done  here  is  carried  to 
perfection  in  a  kindlier  world,  not  only  in  the  everlasting 
life  of  each  worker,  but  in  the  mighty  whole  of  a  human 


278 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


race  destined  to  slowly  form  itself,  through  the  undying 
labor  of  each  and  all  in  God,  into  the  full-grown  man. 
And,  finally,  their  absence  deprives  him  of  any  large 
power  of  appeal  to  those  deep-seated  feelings  of  awe, 
mystery,  and  adoration,  which  are  drawn  out  in  men  by 
the  idea  of  God ;  and  which  are,  when  linked  to  the  in- 
spiration whicli  flows  from  the  lo\-e  of  a  perfect  man, 
the  source  of  that  enthusiasm  which  supports  and  con- 
tinues a  religion. 

Practically,  then,  we  should  expect  a  priori  that  sec- 
ularism, on  account  of  its  negation  of  God  and  immor- 
tality, could  not  float  its  noble  ideas.  And  this  is  really 
the  fact :  it  has  had  many  followers,  but  the  greater 
number  do  not  remain  in  it ;  they  change  out  of  it  into 
many  Christian  sects,  or  they  pass  from  entire  unbelief 
into  credulity.  Some  are  the  victims  of  remote  and 
strange  phases  of  fanaticism :  others,  like  Robert  Owen, 
end  in  the  ojiposite  extreme  of  "  spiritualism." 

Nor  have  the  societies  or  sects  of  secularism  any  co- 
herence :  none  of  them  can  keep  up  a  permanent  organi- 
zation, and  their  quarrels  are  as  bitter  as  they  say  that 
those  of  Christians  are.  The  very  best  among  them  pass 
through  life  doing  their  duty  to  tlie  last,  but  in  a  kind 
of  mournful  hoj^elessness,  their  heart  unsatisfied,  though 
their  intellect  may  be  at  rest ;  for  there  is,  deep  down  in 
their  minds,  the  painful  suspicion  that  clinging  to  nega- 
tions may  after  all  be  itself  as  blind  a  suiJerstition  as  any 
of  those  which  they  attack. 

To  siun  up  all,  there  are  a  few  ideas  in  secularism 
which  owe  their  origin  to  the  insensible  growth  of  the 
ideas  of  Christ  among  men.  These  ideas  are  in  advance 
of  the  accejjted  Christianity  of  this  day,  but  they  are 


IMMORTALITY. 


279 


inoperative  in  secularism.  "When  we  take  them  into 
connection  with  the  belief  in  God  and  immortality,  they 
will  become  operative,  but  they  will  modify  the  present 
form  of  Christianity. 

Secondly,  we  consider  the  religion  of  positivism  in  the 
same  light.  It  maintains,  though  in  a  different  and 
more  cultured  form,  tlie  same  views  on  these  j^oints  as 
secularism.  But  it  avoids  negations  for  the  most  2)art, 
and  confines  itself  to  saying  that  Christianity  has  noth- 
ing more  to  give  to  man ;  that  its  good  influence  is 
exhausted  for  the  western  nations.  In  it,  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  God  and  immortality  entirely  disappears.  In 
sjiite  of  this,  and  far  more  than  secularism,  it  has  drunk 
deep  of  the  spirit  of  Christianity :  most  of  its  doctrines 
may  be  directly  inferred  from  the  teaching  of  Christ 
and  the  Apostles,  and  in  fact  are  unconsciously  derived 
from  it.  Only  it  is  to  be  said  that  the  accredited  Chris- 
tianity of  the  day  has  not  yet  arrived  at  these  expan- 
sions of  Christian  ideas,  that,  so  far,  the  followers  of 
Comte's  religion  are  in  front  of  iis,  and  that  we  ought, 
in  spite  of  the  curious  and  infidel  surrounding  of  these 
new  thoughts,  to  claim  them  as  by  right  our  own  and 
embody  them  in  Christianity. 

The  future  Christianity  will  have  to  take  into  itself 
such  doctrines  as  social  and  international  self-sacrifice, 
which  is  a  direct  and  logical  expansion  of  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  self-sacrifice.  It  is  surprising,  if  anything 
is  surprising,  that  we  have  not  done  this  already ;  that 
in  our  pulpits  we  only  speak  of  the  seK-sacrifice  of  one 
person  for  another,  and  almost  nothing  of  the  duty  of 
the  citizen  to  sacrifice  himseK  for  his  jjarish,  for  social 


280 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


ends,  for  the  State ;  of  the  duty  of  nations  to  sacrifice 
their  own  interests  for  tlie  sake  of  the  community  of 
nations,  and  of  tlie  duty  of  the  community  of  nations  to 
sacrifice  much  in  the  present  for  the  sake  of  the  future 
welfare  of  the  whole  race.  Nor  must  we  leave  out 
other  positivist  doctrines,  such  as  the  necessity  of  giving 
to  each  of  the  human  faculties  tlieir  ai)])roj)riate  work 
in  connection  with  a  large  idea  of  religion,  a  doctrine 
contained,  as  I  think,  in  Saint  Paul's  view  of  the  relation 
of  gifts  and  of  distinct  characters  to  the  growth  of  the 
race  in  God,  and  of  the  working  *  of  these  differing  gifts 
by  a  divine  s}jirit  for  that  purpose ;  nor  yet  that  other 
doctrine  of  the  sanctification  of  all  human  effort  to  the 
good  of  man,  so  that  social  feeling  may  be  victorious 
over  self-love,  Avhich  is  in  fact  the  redeclaration,  in  a 
Avider  form  than  we  declare  it,  of  the  whole  aim  and 
spirit  of  Christ's  life ;  nor  yet  tliat  other  doctrine  of  the 
union  of  science,  art,  and  morality  into  an  harmonious 
whole,  under  the  regenerating  influence  of  the  worship 
of  humanity,  —  a  concejition  which  we  shall  take,  and 
only  change  by  rei)lac'ing  the  worship  of  humanity  by 
the  worship  of  the  Christ  as  the  representative  and 
concentration  into  an  ideal  man  of  the  whole  race  as  it 
is  in  God ;  nor  yet,  finally,  that  other  idea  of  the  race  as 
one  great  Being  ever  living  and  moving  on  by  the  service 
of  each  to  the  use  of  the  Avhole,  which  is,  in  truth,  the 
idea  of  the  race  as  "  the  full-grown  man  "  laid  down  by 
Saint  Paul  in  the  Epistle  to  the  EjDhesians,  adding,  how- 
ever, to  this  last  thought  that  which  gives  it  reality  and 
concrete  form, —  the  belief  in  One  who  is  the  federal 

*"An  these  worketh  that  one  and  the  selfsame  Spirit,  dividing  to 
every  man  severally  as  he  will." 


IMMORTALITY. 


281 


Head  of  this  great  Being,  because  lie  is  himself  in  per- 
fection that  which  the  race  is  as  yet  imperfectly.  These 
are  the  doctrines  Avhich  we  gladly  receive  as  expansions 
of  our  Christianity,  and  by  which  we  modify  our  present 
form  of  it. 

But  we  shall  absorb  them,  retaining  that  which  the 
religion  of  positivism  leaves  out  as  unnecessary,  but 
without  which,  as  we  think,  these  new  ideas  die  of  star- 
vation,—  the  belief  in  the  Being  of  a  loving  Father,  and 
in  the  endless  life  of  each  and  all.  That  there  does  exist 
in  man  the  desire  of  adoring  an  all-embracing  Being, 
and  the  desire  of  immortality,  positivism,  imlike  secular- 
ism, is  too  wise  to  deny;  and  it  attempts  to  j^rovide  for 
these  two  passions  in  its  religion.  Instead  of  God,  it 
presents  us  with  humanity  conceived  of  as  a  A'ast  organ- 
ism comjjosed  of  all  men  and  women  Avho  have  lived  for 
the  sake  of  mankind.  This  is  the  Being  we  are  to  wor- 
ship, a\\(l  of  Avhora  we  ourselves  arc  part :  we  devote  our 
thoughts  to  the  knowledge  of  her,  our  afflictions  to  her 
loA'C,  our  actions  to  her  service.  To  become,  in  the 
thoughts  of  men,  at  one  with  this  Being  Avhose  life  re- 
news itself  throughout  all  time,  and  to  be  commemorated 
and  loved  by  men  to  come,  to  have  our  immortality  in 
the  continued  existence  and  affection  of  the  race, —  this 
is  the  reward  and  this  the  eternal  life  which  this  religion 
offers  to  our  accejitance. 

Well,  if  such  an  object  of  worshij)  and  such  an  immor- 
tality satisfy  the  jiassions  and  longings,  the  existence  of 
which  the  positivist  confesses  in  others,  it  will  be  very 
strange.  He  allows  that  they  do  not  satisfy  men  as  at 
present  constituted,  that  the  old  feelings  must  be  driven 
out  before  the  new  gosj^el  be  received.    But  we  are  told 


282 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


that  education  from  the  positivist  j^oint  of  view  will 
transfer  the  feelings  now  expended  on  God  to  this  new 
Being,  and  that  the  aspirations  which  now  cluster  round 
immortality  will  liave  their  satisfaction  in  the  delight  of 
having  our  work  interwoven  Avith  the  progress  of  man- 
kind. Against  these  assertions,  one  can  only  apjieal  to 
time  for  a  full  re])ly.  But  it  does  seem  true  that  men,  if 
they  worship,  wish  to  worship  what  is  j)erfect  and  abso- 
lute, and  that  the  worship  of  an  imperfect  and  growing 
humanity  cannot  ever  satisfy  their  wish.  And  it  also 
seems  true  that  men,  if  they  worship,  wish  to  worship 
one  whom  they  can  distinctly  conceive  as  a  person  in 
relation  with  themselves,  and  in  whom,  as  the  ideal  Man, 
each  man  can  love  his  race.  The  Great-Being  of  the 
Comtist  does  not  realize  this  wish.  The  organism  of 
which  he  speaks  is  not  distinct  to  thought,  is  not  a 
person,  is  not  capable  of  entering  into  sejjarate  relations 
of  affection  with  individuals.  The  whole  thing,  while 
j^rofessing  to  be  siiecially  human,  seems  to  me  sjiecially 
inhuman.  Nor  will  men,  I  think,  be  satisfied  to  live 
only  in  the  memory  of  those  to  come,  and  to  exchange 
the  2)romise  of  immortal  life  (growing  fuller,  Aviser,  more 
intense  in  Avork  and  enjoyment  of  groAA'th,  more  indiA'id- 
ual  and  yet  less  liable  to  self-absorption,  every  day)  for 
the  2>romise  of  annihilation,  except  so  far  as  their  influ- 
ence and  acts  remain  in  tlie  continued  ^^I'ogress  of  the 
race.  They  Avill  say :  "  All  you  promise  me  I  have 
already  in  Christianity,  and  the  something  more  which 
you  do  not  j^romise.  The  j^ast  and  all  its  human  story  is 
far  more  living  to  me  than  it  is  to  you.  I  belong  in 
Christ  (who  has  redeemed  and  is  redeeming  all  men)  to 
all  the  sj^irits  who  have  been.    I  am  a  jjart,  not  of  a 


IMMORTALITY. 


283 


'humanity,'  all  the  back  j^ortions  of  which  are  dead,  but 
of  a  mighty  army  of  living  men,  who,  though  called  dead 
to  us,  are  yet  united  to  us  in  spirit,  and  doing  luiman 
work  in  God,  in  a  world  to  which  I  am  going.  Nor  do  I 
only  belong  to  the  past  and  present  of  mankind  :  I  belong 
in  God,  who  holds  eternity  within  himself,  to  all  the 
future  of  mankind.  Those  yet  unborn  are  living  in  him, 
and  therefore  bound  to  me.  And  all  the  beings  of  the 
human  race,  on  earth  and  in  heaven,  are  advancing 
together, —  a  vast  jiolity,  under  the  education  of  the  Lord 
and  King,  whose  name  is  Eternal  Love.  Till  you  can 
bring  your  conception  up  to  the  level  of  that  magnificent 
conception,  we  refuse  to  take  it  into  serious  considera- 
tion. It  is  a  lower  thought,  and  we  cannot  change  gold 
against  lead." 

We  believe,  then,  in  the  eternal  progress  of  the  race 
in  God,  not  only  in  the  immortality  of  individuals,  but  in 
the  immoi'tality  of  mankind.  It  made  men  fairly  object 
to  immortality  when  it  was  held  to  secure  to  a  few  con- 
tinuous union  with  good,  and  to  the  many  continuous 
union  with  evil.  It  is  to  this  false  and  cruel  view  that 
we  owe  the  sjiread  and  the  strength  of  secularism.  But 
day  by  day  the  doctrine  of  the  eternity  of  evil  is  being 
driven  into  its  native  night  before  a  higher  view  of  the 
nature  of  God,  and  a  nobler  belief  in  him  as  the  undying 
righteousness.  We  are  beginning  to  understand  Avhat 
Christ  meant  when  he  said,  "  Other  sheep  I  have,  which 
are  not  of  this  fold:  them  also  I  must  bring;  and  there 
shall  be  one  flock  and  one  shepherd."  It  was  a  "must," 
an  imperative  duty  which  the  Saviour  felt ;  and  he  spoke 
in  the  name  of  God,  who  feels  the  same  as  a  necessity  of 
his  relation  to  us. 


284 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


The  act  of  creation  lays  on  us  a  duty.  We  bring  a 
child  into  the  world,  and  the  absolute  imperative  of  God 
is  on  us  to  feed,  educate,  and  love  to  the  end  that  to 
which  we  have  given  life.  We  do  our  best  for  the  child, 
but  we  will  sujjpose  that  all  goes  Avrong.  We  expend 
our  love  upon  him,  he  rejects  it ;  we  punish,  and  he 
hardens  under  j^inishment  and  leaves  us ;  we  go  after 
him,  and  lie  refuses  to  return ;  we  give  him  up  to  himself 
for  a  time,  and  he  grows  worse,  and  dies  impenitent. 
But,  if  we  are  of  a  true  liuman  nature,  we  cannot  forget 
him.  Our  first  tliought  in  the  other  world  is  our  erring 
son,  and  if  we  can, —  and  I  for  one  do  not  doubt  it, — 
our  one  effort  in  the  eternal  life  will  be  to  find  him  out 
and  redeem  him  to  our  heart  by  any  sacrifice  which  love 
can  prompt.  And,  even  could  love  not  move  us,  duty 
would  call  us  to  this  righteous  quest.  We  imcst  bring 
our  wanderer  home. 

It  is  so,  I  firmly  believe,  with  God  and  men.  By  the 
very  act  of  creation,  God  has  laid  upon  himself  a  neces- 
sity of  redemi^tion.  We  wander  from  him,  and  he  jiun- 
ishes  us  through  his  sjjiritiial  laws ;  we  reap  that  which 
we  have  sown ;  we  fill  our  belly  witli  the  husks  which 
the  swine  eat.  He  lets  us  eat  of  the  fruit  of  our  own 
devices,  the  day  of  retribution  comes,  and  our  jileasures 
turn  to  gall,  our  irritated  desires  become  our  hell. 
Lower  and  lower  still  we  sink,  and  suffering  is  hard  on 
us ;  for  impenitent  man  must  touch  the  abyss  of  God's 
chastising  tenderness  before  pride  and  self  be  conquered 
into  penitence.  But  God  waits  and  works  :  "Tlieni  also 
I  must  bring,"  speaks  the  necessity  which  flows  from  his 
Fatherhood.  All  through  our  deepest  ruin,  God's  victo- 
rious love  is  opposed  to  man's  reluctant  hatred  and 


IMMORTALITY. 


285 


despair,  till  at  last  tliey,  being  of  the  finite  finite,  and  of 
the  dead  things  of  the  universe  dead,  are  shattered  to 
pieces  by  persistent  love  ;  and  the  child,  come  to  himself, 
calls  out  from  the  depths  of  a  divine  misery,  "I  will 
arise,  and  go  to  my  Father."  Far  off,  his  Father  sees 
him,  and  in  triumphant  joy  receives  him  :  "This  my  son 
was  dead,  and  is  alive  again ;  Avas  lost,  and  is  found." 
It  Avill  bo  tlius  within  eternity,  till,  in  the  fulness  of 
charity,  there  shall  be  at  last  one  floek  and  one  shepherd. 
Most  tender  and  most  true  of  images !  Contrast  it,  in 
its  beauty,  with  the  common  notion  of  the  future  of  the 
race, —  that  notion  which  has  maddened  men  into  athe- 
ism and  hatred  of  immortality,— a  small  flock  on  which 
all  the  infinite  love  of  the  infinite  goodness  is  outpoured, 
and  beyond  its  fold  a  howling  wilderness  of  lost  and 
ruined  souls,  lost  and  ruined  for  ever  and  ever,  and 
rained  upon  by  the  eternal  fires  of  the  everlasting  anger 
of  a  vindictive  God.  It  is  not  so:  that  is  not  our  God, 
nor  that  our  heaven,  nor  that  the  immortality  for  which 
we  cry.  God  must  bring  all  his  creatures  to  himself. 
"There  shall  be  one  flock  and  one  shepherd." 

As  long  as  the  horror  of  everlasting  punishment,  or, 
as  it  may  be  better  expressed,  of  everlasting  evil,  is 
preached,  secularism  will  keep  alive.  Rough-thinking 
men  at  this  time  of  the  world  cannot  stand  Manichieism ; 
and  it  is  no  wonder  tliat  they  deny  God,  when  one  of  the 
main  things  they  are  told  is  that  God  either  keeps  up 
evil  forever  in  his  universe,  or  is  unable  to  put  an  end  to 
it.  Nor  is  it  any  Avonder  that  they  become  unbelievers 
in  Christianity,  when  a  doctrine  is  linked  to  Christianity 
"which  denies  their  moral  instincts,  and  makes  them  look 
on  God  as  the  sovereign  tyrant ;  which  forces  them  to 


286 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


consider  the  story  of  redemption  as  either  a  Aveak  effort 
on  the  part  of  an  incapable  God,  or  a  mockery  by  him 
of  his  creatures  on  the  plea  of  a  love  which  they  see  as 
scornful,  and  a  justice  which  they  declare  to  be  favorit- 
ism. I  prophesy,  as  this  doctrine  perishes,  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  working-classes  from  secularism  into  faith  in 
the  Father  of  men.  I  foresee  a  brighter,  more  joyous, 
more  natiiral  Christianity,  in  the  midst  of  which  faith 
and  hope  shall  abide,  and  love  which  never  faileth.  Fifty 
years  hence,  we  shall  all  believe  in  the  victorious  2JOwer 
of  goodness,  and  the  test  of  Orthodoxy  shall  not  be  that 
which  I  once  heard  ajjplied  to  a  young  clergyman, —  "Sir, 
do  you  believe  in  the  devil?"  It  will  be  this  :  "Do  you 
believe  in  God  ?  " 

Again,  the  doctrine  of  immoi'tality  was  fairly  objected 
to,  when  it  led  men  to  dwell  on  their  own  salvation  as 
the  first  thing,  when  it  promoted  the  idea  of  individual- 
ism to  the  loss  of  the  idea  of  association.  To  this 
tendency  of  the  doctrine,  we  owe  its  rejection  by  the 
positivist  religion ;  for  it  injured  one  of  the  foremost 
doctrines  of  Comte, —  that  self-love  must  be  systemati- 
cally subordinated  to  social  and  international  sacrifice, 
that  all  men  and  nations  ought  to  be  bound  together  as 
one  man. 

The  tendency  against  which  there  has  been  this  re- 
action is  indeed  contained  in  the  Christian  doctrine :  it 
does  dwell  on  and  deepen  individuality.  But  it  was  a 
shameful  thing  Avhen  men  tore  away  this  element  of  the 
doctrine  from  its  brother  element,  isolated  it,  and  turned 
it,  as  a  half-truth,  into  a  lie.  For  the  doctrine  was  united 
on  its  other  side  to  the  frankest  sacrifice  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  whole;  nay,  it  gave  men  to  understand 


IMMORTALITY. 


287 


th;it,  without  the  largest  sacrifice,  immortal  life  could 
not  l)c  attained.  "Whosoever  saveth  his  life  shall  lose 
it,"  said  Christ;  "and  wliosoever  loseth  his  lifo,  the  same 
shall  save  it."  He  himself  vas  the  Eternal  Life,  hecause 
he  died  for  the  whole  world  of  men.  "  I  could  wish  myself 
accursed  from  Christ,"  said  Saint  Paul,  "for  my  brethren, 
my  companions'  sake."  There  was  no  base  individual- 
ism in  that  noble  sj^eech  :  to  have  the  spirit  which  can 
say  it  is  to  have  innnortal  life. 

Nor  did  Christianity  in  its  relation  to  immortality 
shut  out  the  element  of  association.  Its  original  church 
was  chosen  from  mankind  for  the  purpose  of  bringing 
all  mankind  into  it.  The  heathen  world  are  spoken  of 
as  apart  from  it,  but  only  as  theji  apart  from  it :  its 
object  was  to  unite  all  nations  into  one,  to  bring  the 
Avildest  and  remotest  within  its  realm.  No  class  was 
left  out,  no  classes  existed  in  its  spiritual  kingdom :  all 
were  children  of  God,  brothers  of  one  another;  and 
this  was  their  immortal  life  in  the  spiritual  world,  that 
they  all  lived  in  and  for  each  other.  The  images  used 
to  describe  the  Christian  idea  of  the  Church  were  im- 
ages of  association:  a  temple  built  of  living  stones; 
a  human  body,  whose  head  was  Christ,  from  whom  "the 
whole  body,  fitly  joined  together,  and  compacted  by  that 
Avhich  every  joint  suj)j)lieth,  according  to  the  effectual 
working  in  the  measure  of  every  part,  maketh  increase 
of  the  body  to  the  edifying  of  itself  in  love."  That  is 
not  the  doctrine  of  each  man  for  himself,  but  of  each 
for  all.  The  same  idea  is  more  fully  carried  out  in  the 
First  Epistle  to  the  Corinthians,  chapter  twelve.  And  I 
must  here  say  that  these  Epistles  are  not  to  be  taken  as 
addressed  to  a  close  sect  of  believers :  they  were  written 


288 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


to  all  the  Corinthian  Church,  and  through  them  to  all 
mankind.  Xor  were  these  words  spoken  to  specially 
holy  i^ersons,  but  to  the  whole  body  of  men,  bad  or 
good,  in  that  Clmrch, —  to  fanatics,  to  drunkards  who 
scandalized  the  Supper  of  the  Lord,  to  defenders  of 
incest,  to  men  fighting  M'ith  one  another  and  divided 
into  religious  sects,  as  well  as  to  the  righteous.  He 
begins  by  speaking  of  the  diversities  of  gifts,  and  of 
their  use  in  the  progressive  education  of  the  whole 
body,  each  ministering  that  which  the  other  Avanted. 
He  goes  on  to  say  that  "all  have  been  bajjtizcd  into  one 
body,  Avhether  Jew  or  Gentile,  bond  or  free  "  ;  for  there 
was  no  separation  of  nations  or  classes.  The  isolation  of 
one  from  the  rest  is  then  condemned,  for  the  body  is  not 
one  member,  but  many ;  nor  can  any  member  sejjarate 
himself  from  the  body,  because  he  is  not  as  another: 
"For  if  the  foot  shall  say.  Because  I  am  not  the  hand, 
I  am  not  of  the  bodj',  is  it  not  therefore  of  the  body?" 
Nor  can  any  member  say  that  lie  can  live  without  the 
life  of  any  other  member:  "The  eye  cannot  say  to  the 
hand,  I  have  no  need  of  thee :  nay,  even  those  mem- 
bers of  the  body  which  we  think  to  be  less  honorable, 
upon  these  we  bestow  more  abundant  honor,  and  our 
uncomely  jiarts  have  more  aljundant  comeliness.  For 
our  comely  jjarts  have  no  need;  but  God  hath  temj^ered 
the  body  together,  having  givei\  more  abundant  honor 
to  that  part  which  lacked,  that  there  should  be  no 
schism  in  the  body,  but  that  the  members  should  have 
the  same  care  one  for  another.  And  whether  one  mem- 
ber suffer,  all  the  members  suffer  with  it,  or  one  member 
be.  honored,  all  the  members  rejoice  with  it."  Mazzini 
himself  could  not  now,  eighteen  hundred  years  after,  ae- 


IMMORTALITY. 


289 


clare  more  strongly  tlie  princijilo  of  association.  Comte 
could  not  assert  more  largely  the  doctrine  of  interna- 
tional interdependence.  Of  course  it  may  be  said  that 
these  things  were  written  solely  to  the  Christian  Church. 
That  I  deny,  if  the  Christian  Church  is  taken  to  mean 
any  isolated  body  at  any  time  in  history.  They  were 
written  to  describe  the  ideal  of  the  Christian  Church, 
and  that  ideal  includes  all  mankind.  They  describe 
what  ought  to  be  the  relation  of  nations  to  nations,  of 
nations  to  tribes  of  every  type  and  color,  of  men  to 
men  all  over  the  world.  And  they  describe  what  will 
be  in  the  fulness  of  time,  when  the  body  of  mankind, 
past,  present,  and  future,  shall  be  wholly  finished,  and 
the  actual  be  identical  with  the  ideal  Man. 

It  is  this  mighty  concejjtion  which  we  ought  to  link  to 
our  thought  of  immortality.  Without  it,  the  desire  of 
eternal  life  becomes  selfish  and  swiftly  falls  to  evil :  with 
it,  it  grows  into  the  grandest  thought  which  a  man  can 
have  on  earth ;  with  it,  immortality  binds  itself  up  with 
all  the  noblest  sjjeculations  of  patriot,  philosojjher,  and 
lover  of  man,  with  all  the  ideas  of  our  time  which  have 
regard  to  a  universal  and  united  mankind,  giving  to 
them  new  strength  and  coherence,  a  fresher  ho2)e,  an 
unashamed  faith ;  and  leading  them  beyond  the  silence 
and  inaction  of  the  toml),  where  jiositivist  and  secularist 
bury  forever  the  mighty  drama  of  the  past  of  men,  bids 
them  look  forward  with  a  morning  light  in  their  eyes  to 
the  endless  beauty  and  unfailing  work  of  a  mankind  so 
loved,  so  deeply  loved  by  us,  that,  when  for  a  moment 
the  thought  crosses  our  brain  that  it  could  die  and  make 
no  sign,  something  seems  to  break  within  our  heart. 


IMMOETALITY-III.* 


1871. 

"For  he  is  not  a  God  of  tlie  dead,  but  of  the  living;  for  all  live 
unto  him." — Luke  xx.,  38. 

It  h;is  been  said  by  the  author  of  the  History  of 
nationalism  that  "  the  discoveries  of  modern  science 
form  a  habit  of  mind  wliich  is  carried  far  beyond  the 
limits  of  physics." 

Nowhere  is  tliis  more  true  than  in  tlie  scornful  doubt 
with  which  some  natural  philosoj^hers  meet  the  belief  in 
immortality,  or  in  the  bold  denial  which  they  give  it.  It 
is  not  long  ago  since  I  heard  a  geologist  say,  "  As  a  body, 
we  have  given  up  the  belief  in  immortality."  It  may  be 
worth  while  to-day  to  suggest,  first,  a  cause  for  this 
wide-spread  surrender  of  an  old  belief  among  the  men 
who  pursue  physical  science ;  secondly,  to  look  into  the 
reason  they  give  for  tlieir  denial,  and  to  see  if  that  rea- 
son be  reasonable ;  and,  thirdly,  to  suggest  a  ])roof  of  the 
doctrine. 

1.  The  cause  I  believe  to  be,  in  the  case  of  many  men 
of  science,  an  unequal  development  of  their  nature  ;  in 
other  words,  a  want  of  uniform  culture.    They  give  up 

*  I  am  indebted  to  Fichte'.s  Vocation  of  Man  for  a  portion  of  the  argument 
in  this  sermon,  from  our  consciousness  of  will  and  its  results  to  the  existence 
of  a  "  self-active  Reason  and  a  living  Will." 


IMMORTALITY. 


291 


their  wliole  life  and  all  its  energy  to  the  study  of  physi- 
cal phenomena.  In  these  jjhenomena,  they  find  nothing 
S2)iritual.  The  strata  of  an  ocean-bed  tell  them  nothing, 
in  their  vast  succession  of  life  and  deatli,  of  the  eternal 
continuance  of  the  individual.  The  combinations  of  the 
elements  do  not  speak  of  the  union  of  the  soul  with 
the  Eternal  Soul  of  God,  and  in  the  convolutions  of 
the  brain  and  the  interweaving  of  the  nerves  they  will 
not  disco^•er  faith  or  love  or  reverence  ;  or,  not  being  able 
to  deny  their  existence,  they  say  that  they  dissolve  with 
the  ner\  e  matter,  of  which  they  are  modes  of  motion. 
Xot  only  do  they  study  nothing  but  these  things,  but 
they  ])ut  aside  any  suggestions  of  spiritual  feeling  which 
may  come  to  them  in  their  work,  as  disturbing  elements, 
as  dimming  the  "dry  light"  in  which  they  toil.  It  is 
no  wonder,  then,  that  their  spiritual  faculty  becomes 
dwarfed  or  paralyzed,  till,  not  finding  its  motions  in 
themselves,  they  are  ready  to  deny  their  existence  else- 
where. On  the  other  hand,  their  peculiar  habit  of  mind 
becomes  abnoririally  developed,  and  even  their  imagi- 
nation is  only  used  in  one  direction.  They  are  like  men 
who  should  sit  all  their  life  in  a  chair  and  exercise  their 
arms  violently.  Tlieir  arms  become  immensely  strong, 
their  legs  so  feeble  that  they  cannot  walk.  One  Avould 
not  be  sur])rised  to  hear  these  persons  say,  "  On  the 
whole,  as  a  body,  we  have  given  up  any  belief  in  walk- 
ing being  either  ])leasant  or  intended  for  the  human 
race."  The  answer  is,  "You  are  no  judge  till  you  have 
recovered  the  use  of  your  legs." 

Xor  is  one  in  the  least  surj^rised  by  a  similar  assertion 
on  the  jiart  of  some  natural  philosophers  with  regard  to 
immortality.     Given  the  previous  habit  of  mind  and 


292 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


work,  what  else  but  unbelief  could  ensue  ?  Only  we  can 
,  scarcely  refrain  a  smile  when  the  assertion  is  made  Avitli 
a  certain  Pharisaic  aii",  "Nature,  I  thank  thee,  I  am  not 
led  away  by  superstition  or  feeling,  e^•on  as  these  Chris- 
tians " ;  and  the  only  possible  answer  is  a  smile,  such  as 
the  natural  philosopher  would  greet  a  religious  man 
with,  who  had  as  nnich  neglected  liis  intellect  and  its 
exercise  as  the  denier  of  immortality  has  neglected  his 
spirit  and  its  exercise,  and  Avho  should  saj-,  as  if  it  set- 
tled the  Avhole  question,  "On  the  Avhole,  we  have  ceased 
to  believe  in  the  truth  of  the  theory  of  gravitation." 

But,  again,  as  there  are  some  who  have  lost  the  use  of 
the  religious  jiowers  through  neglect  of  them,  so  there 
are  others  in  whom  the  religious  powers  seem  Avholly 
wanting.  They  seem  to  be  born  with  a  radical  defect 
in  their  nature,  and  they  can  no  more  see  the  truth  or 
the  necessity  of  immortality  tlian  some  who  are  color 
blind  can  see  the  beauty  or  the  use  of  color.  None  are 
more  upright  than  this  class  of  scientific  men  :  they  love 
truth,  and  pursue  after  it  in  jihysics  w  ithout  one  back- 
ward step.  But  they  cannot  imderstand  the  things  of 
the  spirit,  for  these  are  naturally  foolishness  to  them. 

I  can  see  the  use,  almost  the  necessity,  of  this.  Nat- 
ure has  to  be  ruthlessly  examined,  forced  step  by  step  to 
yield  her  secrets.  The  good  of  the  race  demands  that 
a  certain  amount  of  this  Avork  should  be  done  by  men 
who  are  not  disturbed  by  the  speculations  or  the  pas- 
sions of  the  spirit ;  and,  though  there  are  many  who  unite 
with  ease  the  realms  of  faith  and  of  experiment  under 
one  government,  yet  there  are  a  few  whose  work  is 
needed  in  physics,  and  who  would  do  but  little  therein,  if 
they  were  called  on  to  contend  also  in  the  world  of  the 


IMMORTALITY. 


293 


spirit.  These,  I  think,  :ire  so  far  sacrificed  in  this  life 
for  the  good  of  the  whole ;  allowed  to  remain  imperfect 
men  that  they  may  do  their  own  special  work  in  a  per- 
fect manner.  And  we  accept  their  work  with  gratitude, 
and  say  to  ourselves  when  we  regret  their  want,  "  God 
has  plenty  of  time  to  finish  the  education  of  his  laborers: 
that  which  is  deficient  here  will  be  added  hereafter." 
But  at  the  same  time,  while  we  recognize  the  excellent 
work  of  these  philoso2)hers  in  their  own  sphere,  we  ask 
of  them  not  to  force  upon  us  the  results  of  their  blind- 
ness in  anotlier  region.  If  a  man  cannot  see  red,  we  do 
not  let  him  impose  on  us  the  statement  that  red  is  not  to 
be  seen,  even  though  he  may  be  a  perfect  musician.  If 
a  man  cannot  conceive  immortality,  we  do  not  let  him 
imjjose  on  us  the  statement  that  immortality  is  a  vain 
dream,  even  though  he  may  be  a  natural  philosopher  of 
the  first  rank.  We  are  bound  to  say  to  the  one.  As  a 
musician,  we  accept  your  criticisms :  as  a  judge  of  color, 
you  are  of  no  value ;  and  to  the  other,  As  a  natural 
2)hilosopher,  we  bow  to  your  conclusions:  as  a  judge  of 
the  truth  or  falsehood  of  immortality,  your  opinion  is 
worthless. 

Again,  in  no  way  is  the  habit  of  mind  of  which  we 
are  sj^eaking  carried  further  than  in  the  saying  of  some 
physiologist, — that  all  thought  and  feeling  are  insej^arably 
bound  up  with  physical  form,  with  nervous  centres  and 
the  rest ;  that  form  makes  mind,  and  therefore  that  mind, 
feeling,  memory,  and  the  desires,  the  pain,  and  the  joy 
of  that  which  we  call  the  spirit,  perish  with  the  disso- 
lution of  the  machine  of  which  they  are  part.  I  have 
just  as  good  a  right  to  start  from  the  other  side,  and  to 
say  that  thought  makes  form:  nay,  I  have  even  more 


294 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


right ;  for,  by  a  strict  process  of  reasoning,  one  may  fairly 
arrive  at  the  statement  that  our  o'n'n  frame  and  the  whole 
material  universe  is  the  product  of  our  own  thought.  I 
do  not  say  that  I  l:now  this,  nor  assert  tljat  mind  makes 
form,  but  it  is  just  as  probable  as,  and  even  more  prob- 
able than,  tlie  ojiposite  assertion.  Both  statements  are 
incapable  of  sufficient  proof.  Professor  Huxley  says 
that,  "when  men  begin  to  talk  about  there  being  nothing 
else  in  the  universe  but  matter  and  force  and  necessary 
laws,  he  declines  to  follow  them";  and  equally,  when 
men  say  that  there  is  nothing  else  in  the  universe  but 
thought  or  will  or  consciousness,  we  should  decline  to 
follow  them.  The  latter  is  far  more  possible  than  the 
other :  I  am  myself  inclined  to  believe  it,  but  I  do  not 
know  it.  AU  we  know  with  relation  to  our  body  and 
mind  is  that  certain  physical  changes  take  place  simul- 
taneously with  every  thought  and  feeling.  Biit  no 
knowledge  of  the  structure  of  the  brain  or  nerves  can 
show  us  the  connecting  link  between  the  two,  or  enable 
us  to  say  that  physical  motion  is  thought  or  thought 
physical  motion.  "  The  passage  from  the  physics  of  the 
brain,"  says  Dr.  Tyndall,  "to  the  corresjionding  facts  of 
consciousness  is  unthinkable.  Granted  that  a  definite 
thought  and  the  definite  molecular  action  in  the  brain 
occur  simultaneously,  we  do  not  possess  the  intellectual 
organ,  nor  apj^arently  any  rudiment  of  it,  which  could 
enable  us  to  pass  by  a  process  of  reasoning  from  the  one 
jihenomenon  to  the  other.  They  ajijiear  together,  we 
know  not  why."  There  is  no  proof,  then,  that  conscious- 
ness is  inseparably  connected  with  the  physical  frame, 
and  therefore  no  proof  that  it  perishes  with  it.  The 
truth,  then,  of  the  doctrine  of  immortality  remains,  con- 


IMMORTALITY. 


295 


sidered  from  the  intellectual  point  of  view,  an  open  ques- 
tion ;  and  to  daringly  assert  that  it  is  untrue  is  ridiculous 
in  the  mouth  of  a  sensible  man. 

I  may  say  here,  in  a  parenthesis,  that  Christianity  by 
no  means  denies  that  thought  and  form  in  man  are 
closely  connected  one  with  the  other.  On  the  contrary, 
the  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  seems  to  imply  that  the 
liuman  consciousness  needs  form  in  order  to  be  conscious 
of  itself,  for  it  allots  a  body  to  the  soul.  It  does  not  say, 
as  some  have  vainly  fabled,  that  the  body  we  place  in 
the  earth,  and  whose  elements  passed  into  the  earth,  is 
raised  again  :  it  does  say  that  God  gives  a  spiritual  body 
to  the  soul,  whatever  that  may  mean.  It  throws  the 
matter  on  the  omnipotence  of  God ;  and,  if  we  believe 
in  God  at  all,  that  a  new  form  should  knit  itself  to  a 
mind  and  spirit  which  have  become  personal  through 
the  memories  and  work  of  a  human  life  is  no  more  in- 
credible than  that  they  should  have  been  originally  knit 
together. 

Moreover,  should  it  turn  out  to  be  true  that  there  is 
nothing  actually  existing  but  thought,  and  that  our  j^res- 
ent  bodies  are  only  the  product  of  our  j^ower  of  j^resent- 
ing  to  ourselves  our  own  conceptions,  then,  sup230sing 
that  our  personal  order  of  thought  continues  after  that 
■which  we  call  death,  it  Avill  weave  out  of  its  conscious- 
ness, under  changed  conditions,  a  new  vehicle  for  itself, 
and  forever  appear  to  itself  and  others  to  be  connected 
■with  form. 

But  to  return  to  our  argument.  The  natural  philos- 
opher who  may  allow  the  possibility  of  immortality  will 
at  the  same  time  refuse  to  consider  it  as  a  practical  ques- 
tion, because,  before  any  intellectual  proof  can  be  given 


296 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


of  it,  a  sj>iritual  world  must  be  assumed ;  and  he  refuses 
to  believe  without  proof  in  the  existence  of  such  a 
world.  He  takes  nothing  for  granted :  be  will  have  faith 
in  nothing  which  cannot  be  proved  to  the  satisfaction  of 
the  iindcrstanding. 

Now,  I  want  to  try  and  give  some  reply  to  this.  I  will 
not  assume,  as  will  be  seen,  a  spiritual  world.  I  will  only 
begin  with  the  assumption  of  the  reality  of  a  command, 
outside  of  our  thought,  which  bids  us  do  what  is  right, 
and  supposes  that  we  know  what  is  right.  But  even 
this  is  an  act  of  faith,  and  to  that  our  natural  jjhilosojjher 
objects  in  any  shajie. 

"Well,  it  seems  to  me  that  precisely  the  same  difficulty 
which  he  alleges  against  the  consideration  of  immortality 
may  be  alleged  against  himself.  Ho,  too,  must  begin 
with  an  act  of  faith,  and  without  that  beginning  he  can 
know  nothing  at  all  about  the  physical  world.  That  he 
does  know  something  about  it  is  plain.  How  did  he  Avin 
that  knowledge  ?  He  would  say.  By  deductive  and  in- 
ductive reasoning,  accompanied  by  experiment.  I  do 
not  contradict  him ;  but  I  say  that  he  has  left  out  one  of 
the  factors  of  the  answer,  and  a  very  important  one :  he 
has  left  out  the  act  of  faith  with  which  he  started.  He 
willed,  by  an  impulse  within  himself,  for  Avhicli  his  edu- 
cated reason  can  give  no  proof,  to  believe  in  the  exist- 
ence of  a  physical  world.  And  without  that  act  of  faith 
he  could,  by  any  and  every  process  of  reasoning,  have 
only  arrived  at  the  knowledge  that  he  knew  nothing 
at  all.  It  is  not  diiEcult  to  make  this  clear.  By  the 
creation  of  theories  which  he  afterwards  proved  true 
through  their  explanation  of  all  the  phenomena  within 
their  several  spheres,  by  long  experimental  arguments 


IMMORTALITY. 


297 


conducted  from  f:ict  to  fact,  ho  at  last  arrived,  step  after 
step,  at  the  conception  of  one  thing  outside  liimself  by 
which  all  things  are,  and  of  which  all  things  are  forms, 
and  he  calls  this  Force,  —  the  constant  force  of  the 
universe.  And,  having  thus  reduced  all  things  to  one 
expression,  he  may  tliink  that  he  knows  all  things,  or  is 
in  the  sure  way  of  knowing  them.  I  do  not  say  that  he 
is  not ;  but  I  do  say  that  he  assumes  without  proof,  and 
by  faith,  that  there  is  this  thing  outside  of  his  thought, 
this  Force,  which  is  the  i)hysical  universe.  For,  with- 
out assuming  that,  what  happens  as  he  goes  on  thinking? 
He  will  go  back,  and  say  to  himself:  "Just  as  I  ques- 
tioned whether  red  or  blue  had  any  real  existence,  and 
found  that  they  liad  none,  being  only  the  result  produced 
in  my  brain  by  sensations  caused  in  the  eye  by  waves  of 
light  of  different  lengths,  and  just  as  when  I  asked  my- 
self whether  light  had  any  real  existence  as  light,  and 
found  on  inquiry  that  it  was  only  a  mode  of  motion,  a 
form  of  force,  which  was  light  to  me  because  my  eye 
had  certain  atomic  arrangements,  but  which  might  be 
electricity  to  me,  if  the  atoms  of  my  eye  were  differently 
arranged  :  so  now  I  ask  whether  force  itself  has  any 
real  existence  apart  from  my  thought  of  it,  and  therefore 
whether  there  be  a  physical  universe  at  all.  And,  led 
by  reasoning  alone,  I  am  forced  to  say  that  it  has  not, 
that  there  is  nothing  which  I  have  not  first  thought,  that 
I  can  have  no  thought  without  having  first  thought  it. 
By  reasoning  alone,  I  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the 
whole  i^hysical  universe  is  but  a  picture  which  my  own 
thought  presents  to  itself,  and  therefore  that  I  know 
nothing  about  it  as  it  really  is,  if  it  is  ;  for,  even  with 
regard  to  my  own  thought,  I  cannot  say  whether  I  really 


298 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


think  or  only  think  that  I  think.  I  have  reached  a  point 
at  which  all  certainty  disappears.  I  only  know  that  I 
know  nothing." 

But  when  we  have  arrived  at  this  point,  and  abso- 
lutely discredited  all  existence,  even  our  own, —  for  the 
argument  may  be  pushed  to  that, —  the  absurdity  of  the 
conclusion  tells  us  that  there  is  somethins:  wrontr  in  our 
method  of  reasoning,  that  some  factor  has  been  left  out. 

Our  conclusion  is  that  we  know  nothing;  and  the 
understanding,  working  alone,  brings  us  to  that.  But 
one  man  Avill  say,  "  The  fact  is  that  I  do  know  something 
about  the  world  of  nature."  "Well,"  I  reply,  "look  back, 
and  you  will  find  that  you  either  began  with  an  act  of 
faith  in  the  reality  of  the  physical  universe,  or  that  you 
put  in  that  act  of  faith  in  the  course  of  your  argu- 
ment." To  another,  who  allows  that  his  reasoning  has 
led  him  to  the  conclusion  that  he  can  say  nothing  cer- 
tain about  physical  existence,  we  reply :  "  No,  you,  never 
can  know,  till  you  have  resolved  to  add  the  factor  of 
faith  in  an  outward  world  to  your  argument." 

We  must  begin  our  reasoning  by  an  act  of  faith  in 
the  existence  of  a  physical  world,  real  at  least  to  us, 
practically  indejjeudeut  of  us ;  and  it  is  this  act  of  faith 
which  gives  consistence  to  the  whole  fabric  of  our  Jthysi- 
cal  knowledge,  makes  it  useful,  keeps  up  our  work,  and 
saves  us  from  yielding  to  the  conclusion  to  which  we 
are  driven  by  the  work  of  the  reasoning  faculty  alone. 
It  is  the  foundation-stone  on  which  the  whole  of  natural 
science  is  built. 

An  unknown  impulse  in  our  constitution,  the  origin 
of  which  we  cannot  trace,  determines  our  will  —  in  spite 
of  our  educated  reason  —  to  believe  in  a  physical  world. 


IMMORTALITY. 


299 


And  that  is  as  much  and  as  absohite  an  act  of  faith  as 
that  whereby  we  believe  in  God  or  in  the  reaHty  of 
duty, —  two  things  which  are  one,  and  which  together 
infer  immortality.  When  the  man  of  science,  then, 
says  to  me,  "  I  refuse  to  consider  immortality,  it  sets 
out  with  an  act  of  faith,"  I  reply,  "  You  might  as  well 
refuse  to  consider  the  physical  motions  of  the  universe; 
for  to  do  so  demands  that  you  should  first  believe  in  a 
physical  universe,  a  belief  for  which  you  can  give  no 
proof  at  all,  till  you  have  believed  it." 

And  now  to  apply  this  to  the  matter  in  hand,  to  the 
question  of  the  proof  of  immortality.  Taking  the  under- 
standing alone  as  our  guide,  and  believing  nothing  which 
cannot  be  made  plain  to  reasoning,  we  arrive  m  the 
spiritual  region  at  a  conclusion  similar  to  that  which  we 
found  in  the  region  of  physics, —  at  a  knowledge  only 
that  we  know  nothing  of  duty,  immortality,  or  God. 
AVe  ask  and  ask  again ;  and  the  more  we  ask,  the  more 
sceptical  we  become.  This  or  that  may  be  or  may  not 
be.  I  know  nothing  at  all.  And  this  is  misery  to  an 
earnest  man. 

But  as  we  find  tliat  the  natural  philosopher  begins 
by  willing  to  believe  that  there  is  a  ])hysical  world  to 
him,  so  now,  in  tliis  other  region,  we  ask  ourselves 
whether  there  is  nothing  in  us  Avhich  claims  our  faith, 
and  for  which  we  can  bring  no  proof.  Is  there  any- 
thing in  our  consciousness  which  is  independent  of  our 
thought?  And,  as  we  listen,  we  hear  a  voice  wliich 
says,  "  You  were  not  born  only  to  know,  but  far  more  to 
act ;  and  not  to  know  and  through  knowledge  to  act, 
but  to  act,  and  through  action  to  know."  "We  have  an 
imjiulse  to  moral  activity,  which  we  feel  is  one  with  our 


300 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


existence  ;  and  this  impulse  seems  to  be  originally  be- 
yond all  knowledge,  to  transcend  the  realm  of  the 
understanding,  to  be,  not  anything  we  think,  but  the 
ground  of  all  our  thinking.  And  we  seem  to  know 
immediately  and  without  any  jiroof — by  a  different  kind 
of  knowledge,  therefore,  than  that  which  we  gain  from 
reasoning — that  we  must  obey  this  impulse,  or  fall  into 
nothingness.  If  we  take  up  our  old  habit  and  submit 
this  inner  voice  to  the  questions  of  the  understanding, 
we  are  forced  to  ask  if  we  really  feel  this  impulse  or 
only  think  we  feel  it ;  and  speculation  suggests  that  the 
imjnilse  may  be  only  the  thought  of  a  thought  which 
our  consciousness  presents  to  us,  and  that,  if  we  act 
upon  it,  we  cannot  know  whether  we  really  act  or  only 
seem  to  ourselves  to  act.  Tenfold  darkness  of  doubt 
surrounds  us  then,  and  our  life  becomes  like  a  dream 
within  a  dream.  Therefore,  in  despair,  Ave  make  a  bold 
step,  and,  casting  away  those  inquiries  which  led  us 
to  the  abyss  of  nothingness,  we  resolve  with  all  our 
will  to  believe  that  this  impulse  to  moral  action  is  abso- 
lutely a  real  impulse,  and  to  obey  it  as  the  true  calling 
of  our  life.  We  set  aside  the  understanding  at  this 
point,  and  we  call  faith  to  our  side.  Immediately,  we 
know  not  how,  we  are  convinced  that  right  is  a  reality, 
and  that  we  can  do  what  is  right,  and  that  we  shall  find 
our  true  and  only  life  in  doing  it.  We  are  convinced 
of  this  through  faith ;  and  our  faith  arises  not  from  a 
series  of  proofs  offered  by  the  understanding,  but  from 
our  having  freely  willed  to  believe  in  duty, —  that  is,  from 
the  whole  set  of  our  inward  character. 

And  now,  having  by  faith  found  this  clear  starting- 
point,  that  we  are  bound  to  act  according  to  conscience, 


IMMORTALITY. 


301 

« 


what  follows?  The  same  voice  which  tells  iis  that  we 
must  act  riglitly  tolls  us  also,  and  that  necessarily, 
that  our  actions  will  have  a  result  in  the  future;  and, 
as  our  will  and  action  are  conceived  of  as  right,  the 
conception  at  once  arises  of  a  better  M'orld,  in  which  our 
will  and  acts  shall  have  their  due  Aalue.  We  neces- 
sarily look  for-\vard  to  and  live  in  a  nobler  world. 
Where  is,  then,  this  nobler  world  ?  The  religious  in- 
fidel may  accept  so  far  our  argument ;  but  he  will  say 
that  this  world  to  which  we  look  forward  is  to  be  found 
not  in  any  spiritual  world,  but  in  a  future  human  world, 
when  man  has  subdued  the  forces  of  the  universe  so 
that  they  spoil  his  work  no  longer;  when  he  has,  by  the 
long  effort  of  those  who  have  been  faithful  to  the  cause 
of  freedom  and  right,  produced  a  perfect  state  in  which 
each  shall  love  his  neighbor,  and  each  nation  love  its 
neighbor  nation  as  himself.  This  is  the  nobler  world  to 
w4iich  our  actions  and  will  aspire,  and  in  it  are  their 
results.  Neither  immortality  nor  a  sjjiritual  Avorld  needs 
here  be  inferred  from  the  argument. 

But,  granting  that  mankind  will  reach  this  perfect 
state,  Avhat  is  to  happen  then  ?  There  will  be  nothing 
more  to  do,  nothing  to  asjjire  to  left,  nothing  more  to 
know.  Will  action,  then,  and  aspiration  die,  and  curi- 
osity fail  for  food  ?  If  so,  men  will  cease  to  be  men, 
mankind  will  stagnate  in  its  j^lace,  or  will  weep  itself 
to  death,  for  it  will  have  no  more  Avorlds  to  conquer. 
Such  is  the  necessary  result  of  this  theory  without  the 
addition  of  immortal  life ;  aiul  to  this  miserable  end 
we  can  quietly  look  forward,  for  this  we  can  work  with 
energy  and  patience !  When  we  have  made  the  race 
perfect,  we  have  most  utterly  ruined  the  race.    It  seems 


302  FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


an  intolerable  conclusion,  and  an  absurd  one;  and  tliere 
is  no  way  out  of  it  but  either  the  supposition  of  the 
annihilation  of  mankind,  which  renders  our  will  to  do 
right  and  the  effects  we  inevitably  annex  to  it  ridiculous 
in  our  eyes,  or  the  sui^j^osition  that  there  is  another 
world  where  the  race  goes  on  under  new  conditions,  to 
do  new  work  and  win  now  knowledge,  where  the  will 
to  do  right  has  its  highest  and  most  sure  resvilts. 

Moreover,  our  righteous  will  has  but  few  results  in 
this  world.  There  are  a  thousand  thoughts  which  it 
determines,  a  thousand  feelings  it  impels,  which  never 
pass  beyond  our  inner  life.  The  steady  volition  toward 
good  of  a  long  life  has  little  result  on  this  earth.  Many 
of  the  good  things  we  succeed  in  putting  into  action 
miserably  fail  for  want  of  prudence,  or  even  j^roduce 
evil  in  this  world.  Where,  then,  are  the  results  of  these 
things  ?  where  does  the  will  act  ?  where  are  the  broken 
lines,  the  inner  life,  completed  ?  If  nowhere,  and  plainly 
it  is  not  here,  then  half  of  our  being  is  made  up  of 
broken  ends  of  thread. 

We  are  dri^'en  therefore  to  think  that  the  nobler 
world  in  wliich  all  good  action  has  its  own  good  re- 
sults, in  which  our  will  (determined  toward  right)  serves 
always  a  noble  purpose,  is  another  and  a  higher  world 
than  this,  of  which  we  and  all  our  brother-men  are 
citizens.  In  this  world,  our  will  has  jjower  when  we 
will  to  do  right :  it  sets  on  foot  endless  results.  In 
this  world,  which  must  be  spiritual,  because  our  will  is 
spiritual,  we  live  and  move  and  have  our  being  now,  as 
really,  nay,  more  really,  than  we  live  and  move  in  the 
physical  Avorld  by  our  outward  acts,  and  when  we  die 
we  do  not  enter  a  world  of  which  we  have  had  no  ex- 


IMMORTALITY. 


303 


perience,  but  in  a  more  complete  manner,  as  free  from 
earthly  limitations,  into  a  world  in  which  we  have  lived 
already. 

We  are  forced,  then,  Ly  feeling  that  onr  virtnons  will 
must  have  results,  and  by  the  fact  that  it  has  only  a 
small  number  of  results  in  this  world,  to  believe  in  a 
spiritual  world  in  Avhieh  the  Avill,  being  itself  spiritual, 
finds  its  true  ends  fulfilled.  That  is  the  first  step  in 
the  argument  for  immortality,  after  the  act  of  faith  of 
which  I  spoke  has  been  freely  chosen  by  the  will. 

The  second  step  carries  us  on  to  the  truth  of  Im- 
mortality. 

When  I  conceive  of  my  will  to  do  right  having  neces- 
sary/ results  in  a  spiritual  world,  I  conceive  of  a  law  as 
ruling  in  that  world.  If  the  results  must  be,  there  must 
be  a  law  by  which  they  are  necessary.  To  that  law  I 
am  connected  by  moral  obedience;  and,  because  it  an- 
nexes fixed  results  to  virtuous  volition  in  me  and  in  all 
men,  it  is  above  and  beyond  our  wills.  In  it  all  our 
finite  wills  are  held,  and  to  it  they  all  are  subject.  But 
since  the  world  in  which  this  law  is,  is  not  the  world  of 
sense,  but  a  spiritual  Avorld  in  which  will  acts,  the  law  of 
that  world  cannot  be  like  that  wluch  we  call  a  law  here, 
—  a  mere  expression  of  antecedents  and  sequences,  a 
mere  statement  of  the  way  in  which  things  are :  it  must 
be  a  living  laAV  ;  it  must  be  self-active  reason  ;  it  must  be 
a  will. 

And  it  is  a  Will, —  the  Will  from  whom  all  human 
wills  have  flowed,  to  which  all  human  wills  are  related, 
in  whom  all  human  wills  have  being;  the  only  self- 
existent,  the  only  unchangeable,  the  only  infinite  Will, 
of  whom  and  by  whom  and  through  whom  are  all  things, 


304 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


—  God  invisible,  eternal,  absolute,  to  whom  be  glory  for 
ever  and  ever.  The  voice  I  hoar  in  my  heart,  and  to 
which  I  willed  to  give  obedience,  and  whose  reality  I 
believed  at  first,  I  know  now  was  his  voice.  My  will, 
which  determined  to  obey  that  voice,  was  nrged  thereto 
by  tills  infinite  Will.  My  will  is  related  to  him,  and  in 
him  must  have  results  in  the  whole  spiritual  world 
which  exists  in  him  and  by  him.  And  this  which  is 
true  of  me  is  true  of  all  my  fellow-men.  As  the  will  of 
each  is  contained  and  sustained  by  him,  and  has  its 
own  special  results  in  him,  he  becomes  the  spiritual 
bond  of  union  which  unites  me  to  all  the  race :  we 
all  together  share  our  life  in  him.  And  because  we 
share  in  his  being,  and  he  is  eternal  and  imperishable, 
we  also  know,  at  last,  that  we  are  eternal  and  imperish- 
able, and  that,  for  the  certainty  of  which  our  soul  has 
longed  and  cried,  is  a  reality.  We  are  immortal.  Death, 
as  we  call  it,  may  touch  our  sensible  vesture,  but  it  is 
only  a  vesture  which  decays.  Our  being  goes  on  in 
another  life  ;  for  we  live  in  his  life,  and  our  true  world 
is  not  this  world.  "  We  look  for  a  city  which  hath 
foundations."  We  abide  in  him  and  he  in  us,  and  he 
abides  forever. 

The  parallel,  in  fact,  between  the  two  lines  of  argu- 
ment, is  exact.  The  natural  philosopher  having  put  in, 
either  at  the  beginning  or  in  the  2>i'0cess  of  his  work, 
a  belief  in  the  existence  of  Force,  Avhich  is  a  belief  in  an 
outward  world,  finds  that  which  he  was  driven  to  as- 
sume confirmed  at  every  step  of  his  inquiry.  He  cannot 
understand  a  number  of  facts  except  on  the  ground  that 
Force  is  a  reality  to  him  ;  and  he  leaves  aside,  as  un2:)rac- 
tical  in  his  work,  the  question  as  to  whether  it  has  only 


IMMORTALITY. 


305 


an  existence  in  Tliought.  Ills  theory  of  Force  explains 
by  far  the  greater  i)art  of  natural  jihenomona,  and  is 
contradicted  by  none.  lie  returns  then  to  his  starting- 
point,  and  says :  "  That  which  I  originally  believed  with- 
out proof  is  true.    Force  is  a  real  existence." 

Precisely  in  the  same  way,  we  prove  that  the  reality  of 
Duty,  which  we  willed  to  believe,  and  which,  seen  as  we 
saw  it  (not  as  something  developed  by  the  slow  action 
of  social  circumstances,  but  as  a  command  independent 
of  our  own  tliought  and  coming  to  us  from  without), 
necessarily  inferred  a  spiritual  world  and  God  and  Im- 
mortality, is  an  absolute  reality.  It  and  its  necessary 
results,  which  together  form  our  theory  of  the  Universe 
of  Spirit,  solve  the  greater  part  of  the  moral  and  spirit- 
ual problems  of  life,  and  are  not  distinctly  contradicted 
by  any. 

But  it  may  be  said  that  the  analogy  is  not  exact.  For 
though  Force  or  the  physical  world  is  proved  to  have 
a  real  existence  to  vs,  it  is  not  proved  to  have  an  inde- 
pendent existence ;  and  some  scientific  men  are  in  doubt 
on  that  question.  All  Force,  they  say,  may  be  nothing 
more  than  Will, — "Will-force.  Moreover,  though  the  sup- 
position of  its  existence  explains  most  of  the  phenomena 
we  know,  that  does  not  necessarily  infer  that  it  has  any 
existence  inde2)endent  of  Thought.  We  have  no  right 
then,  an  objector  may  say,  to  infer,  because  our  theory 
of  the  Universe  of  Spirit  explains  the  moral  and  spirit- 
ual phenomena  of  human  life  and  its  history,  the  actual 
existence  of  Duty,  of  a  sjjiritual  world,  of  God,  an  of 
Immortality.  We  can  only  infer  their  existence  in 
Thought. 

Only  their  existence  in  Thought !   In  what  else  should 


306 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


they  exist,  and  what  existence  can  be  moi-e  absolute? 
We  ask  no  more.  For,  taking  the  ground  of  those  sci- 
entific men  who  think  that  Force  is  Will,  they  think  no 
more  than  we  wish  them  to  think  that  there  is  a  Will, 
and  therefore  a  Thouglit,  in  whom  the  Universe  is.  In 
thinking  thus,  they  grant  God,  and  tlie  real  existence  of 
all  things  in  him.  In  tliinking  thus,  the  physical  world 
is  no  less  a  reality  to  thom,  but  more.  The  question 
Avhether  it  have  independent  existence  or  not  does  not 
touch  their  work,  nor  will  their  work  on  tliat  account  be 
of  less  moment  forever  aud  ever;  for  the  principles  of 
the  order  of  this  apparent  world  will  be  always  the  same 
in  any  other  apparent  world,  however  different  from 
this,  for  they  are  fixed  in  God's  Thought.  We  have  a 
right,  then,  to  say  that  the  analogy  fits  accurately. 

We  assume,  then,  a  spiritual  world,  or  rather  we  as- 
sume the  reality  of  Duty,  from  which  we  necessarily 
infer,  as  I  said,  a  sjiiritual  world ;  and,  when  we  find 
that  the  phenomena  of  the  human  conscience  and  spirit 
can  be  explained  on  that  assumption,  we  return  to  our 
starting-point,  and  say :  "  That  which  we  believed  with- 
out proof  is  true.  There  is  an  imperative  beyond  our 
thought  and  independent  of  our  consciousness,  which  we 
are  bound  to  obey.  The  moment  we  will  to  obey  it,  we 
are  conscious  that  it  must  have  results,  and,  on  further 
thought,  that  these  results  can  only  be  fully  realized  in 
a  world  in  wliich  Will  and  Tliought  alone  exist,  and 
therefore  in  a  spiritual,  not  a  material  world.  And, 
granting  these  things,  our  will  to  do  right,  and  a  world 
in  which  Will  and  Thought  alone  exist,  we  are  forced  to 
infer  One  whose  Will  is  absolutely  good,  and  who  con- 
tains in  his  Will  our  will,  and  in  his  self-active  Reason 


IMMORTALITY. 


307 


and  Will,  ■which  are  his  personality,  our  personality ; 
One  therefore  "vvho  is  Eternal  Life,  and  the  life  of  all, 
the  only  jiure  Being,  in  whom  all  Being  is.  And,  lastly, 
we  are  driven  ■with  joy  to  feel  and  know  that,  if  Duty 
and  a  spiritual  world  and  God  Le  truths,  Immortality 
must  also  be  a  Truth.  If  we  are  inseparably  connected 
with  the  Infinite  and  Eternal  Will,  we  must  ourselves 
be,  as  derived  from  him,  infinite  and  eternal. 

And  now,  with  this  knowledge  in  our  hand,  we  turn 
to  our  life,  and  find  it  falling  into  perfect  order.  We 
know  w'hence  we  have  come  and  whither  we  are  going. 
We  know  the  end  of  all  our  brother-men  and  the  neces- 
sary end  of  all  this  struggle  of  Man.  Problem  after 
problem  is  solved,  difficulty  after  difficulty  vanishes 
away ;  and,  if  some  things  remain  obscure,  we  know  that 
we  have  but  to  wait,  and  our  key  will  unlock  them, 
when  we  are  able  to  bear  the  revelation.  Peace  enters 
our  heart,  the  peace  which  comes  of  certain  knowledge. 
We  know  and  rest  in  the  infinite  meaning  of  the  Sa- 
viour's saying :.  "  God  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of 
the  living ;  for  aU  live  unto  him." 


IMMOETALITT.-IT. 


1871. 

"For  he  is  not  a  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living;  for  all  live  nnto 
him." — LcKE  XX.,  38. 

Xo  oxE  can  help  feeling,  at  this  time  of  the  year,  a 
forecasting  of  decay.  The  melancholy  skies,  the  naked 
trees,  the  heavy  smell  of  rotting  leaves,  the  hateful  at- 
mosphere, tell  their  own  story.  And  influenced  as  we 
are  through  blood  and  bone  by  the  elements  which  sur- 
round us,  and  by  the  memories  of  brighter  weather,  the 
spring  of  life  relaxes,  and  our  thoughts  take  the  color  of 
decay. 

As  it  is  year  after  year,  is  it  so  for  man  after  man? 
Time  goes  on,  but  past  years  do  not  live  again.  The 
flower-life  goes  on,  but  not  the  same  flowers.  And  does 
mankind  go  on,  but  not  men?  Have  we  each  our  spring, 
our  summer,  our  rich  and  swiftly  miserable  autumn,  our 
winter  of  death,  and  never  another  sjjring?  This  is  the 
thought  of  many  at  this  time.  The  race  continues,  but 
the  individual  perishes.    Death  is  j^ersonal  annihilati6n. 

Last  Sunday,  we  gave  some  reasons  for  the  prevalence 
of  this  thought  among  natural  philosophers :  to-day,  we 
begin  by  giving  some  reasons  for  its  2:)revalence  in  other 
classes  of  society,  and  pass  on  to  consider  the  reason- 


IMMORTALITY. 


309 


ableness  or  not  of  .'uinilnlation  ;  meaning  by  annihilation 
not,  of  course,  the  destrnction  of  tlic  elements  of  which 
our  body  is  composed,  but  the  resolution  into  those  ele- 
ments of  all  that  we  call  thought,  feeling,  will,  and  self- 
consciousness. 

The  reasons  of  the  prevalence  of  this  opinion  vary 
with  different  tyj)es  of  men  and  their  different  lives.  It 
arises  in  some  from  the  intensity  of  youthful  ardor,  Avhen 
it  has  been  o\  erstrained.  They  liave  been  so  full  of  life 
that  they  have  drawn  upon  it  too  much,  and  drained  the 
source  dry.  "Weary,  exhausted,  yet  still  desirous  to  find 
the  old  enjoyment,  they  are  tossed  between  desire  and 
weakness  to  fulfil  desire,  till  at  last  the  only  comfort 
seems  to  be  to  look  forward  to  an  eternal  sleep.  "  Why 
should  the  vital  torment  of  life  be  renewed  ? "  they  ask, 
forgetting  that  it  is  torment  because  life  has  been  mis- 
used, not  knowing  that  life  is  vital  joy  when  it  is  used 
with  temperance. 

It  arises  in  others,  and  these  chiefly  business  men, 
from  the  disease  of  unceasing  work.  One  of  the  things 
which  is  acting  worst  on  English  society  is  that  a  num- 
ber of  men  have  got  into  that  state  in  which  recreation 
is  impossible.  All  the  year  round,  from  morning  to 
night,  they  jjursue  their  trade  or  their  profession  with- 
oiit  a  single  break,  except  their  heavy  after-dinner  sleep. 
Even  in  dreams,  they  hunt  their  work,  like  dogs.  This 
is  also  a  misuse  of  life.  All  joy  is  taken  out  of  it,  beauty 
has  no  place  in  its  foggy  realm :  even  love  resolves  itself 
into  a  dull  desire  to  provide  for  one's  children.  The 
world  is  not  their  oyster  which  they  ojjen :  they  are  the 
oysters  of  the  world.  And,  when  they  are  deaf  and 
blind  to  all  the  loveliness  and  passion  and  movement  of 


310 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


life,  what  wonder  if,  having  become  machines,  they  do 
not  care  to  run  on  forever  ? 

It  arises  in  the  case  of  a  number  of  cultivated  young 
men  from  the  depression  of  failure.  Within  the  last  ten 
years  there  has  been  in  the  universities  an  atmosphere, 
almost  tropical,  of  refined  culture  and  scholarship;  and 
in  it  a  number  of  intellects  and  imaginations  have  been 
forced,  till  they  are,  for  the  most  part,  unfitted  to  do  the 
rough  work  of  the  Avorld.  Educated,  then,  uj)  to  the 
point  at  which  they  fully  comprehend  and  passionately 
feel  the  great  things  which  men  possessing  genius  have 
done,  it  seems  to  them,  by  a  very  common  instinct,  that 
they  can  either  do  the  same,  or  at  least  that  they  have 
a  right  to  try.  Hence,  we  have  the  deluge  of  second  and 
third  rate  painters,  poets,  novelists,  critics,  and  the  rest, 
with  which  England  is  now  overspread.  They  begin 
wath  hope  and  joy  ;  and,  after  a  little  deserved  ajjplause 
for  the  passing  pleasure  they  have  given,  mankind,  whose 
judgment  soon  gets  right,  drops  them,  and  they  feel  with 
bitterness  that,  thoiigh  tho}'  htixe  won  something,  it  is 
not  their  ideal,  and  moreover  that  they  can  fiever  reach 
their  ideal.  The  applause  does  not  deceive  them:  they 
are  too  well  educated  not  to  see,  when  the  first  excite- 
ment of  production  is  over  and  they  look  at  the  work  to 
which  they  have  given  their  best  powers,  that  they  have 
failed.  Disgust  of  life  ensues,  a  kind  of  2>fissionate  hatred 
of  themselves.  In  that  atmosj^here,  no  good  work  can  be 
done ;  and,  if  they  try  again,  the  inspiration  which  they 
had  abandons  them,  it  Avas  founded  on  ignorance  of  the 
extent  of  their  jjowers,  knowledge  has  disjjersed  it :  the 
failure  is  worse  than  before.  But  all  this  sort  of  work 
has  unfitted  them  for  ruder  and  more  practical  work. 


IMMORTALITY. 


311 


After  riding  on  Pegasus,  they  cannot  get  into  tlie  traces 
and  pull  at  the  connnon  chariot  of  the  work  of  tlie  world. 
They  cease  to  act,  they  bury  tlieniselves  in  their  learned 
and  artistic  leisure,  and  all  vivid  life  is  over.  The  bitter- 
ness of  failure  leads  them  to  utter  carelessness  of  a  life 
to  come.  Why  should  they  renew  the  web  which  will 
crack  from  side  to  side  again?  And  the  inaction  in 
which  they  live  takes  away  the  desire  to  live  again,  for 
it  takes  away  the  food  of  life. 

Moreover,  among  persons  of  this  educated  type,  the 
same  thing  holds  good,  as  in  the  case  of  the  scientific 
man  who  pursues  nothing  else  but  science.  Devotion  to 
art  or  to  criticism  alone  develops  the  faculties  used  to 
a  strength  out  of  all  jiroportion  to  the  rest.  Not  only 
are  the  spiritual  powers  dwindled  to  a  thread  for  want 
of  use,  so  that  immortal  life  is  a  pretty  dream,  but  the 
faculties  used,  being  unbalanced  by  other  imi^ortant 
jjowers  of  our  nature,  are  not  capable  of  forming  a  just 
judgment.  Criticism,  in  discussing  matters  such  as  the 
evidence  for  immortality,  discusses  it  as  it  would  the 
evidence  for  the  existence  of  an  early  and  unimportant 
myth.  It  begins  by  sixpposing  it  is  not  true  ;  it  leaves 
out  all  the  sinritual  phenomena  which,  in  the  history  of 
the  human  heart,  have  accompanied  faith  in  it ;  it  treats 
a  question  Avhich  belongs,  by  the  hypotliesis,  to  the  realm 
of  intellect  and  the  si)irit,  as  if  it  were  a  question  of  the 
2'ure  intellect  alone.  On  the  face  of  it,  nothing  can  be 
more  absurd, —  as  absurd  as  the  late  discussion  into  which 
one  of  our  philosophers  enters  with  regard  to  a  mother's 
love  for  a  child,  on  physiological  grounds  alone.  It  is 
plain  in  this  case  that  the  critical  powers  have  become 
so  abnormally  develoj^ed  as  to  vitiate  the  purity  of 
judgment. 


312 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


On  the  other  linnd,  the  mere  «stlietic  life  tends  equally 
to  a  belief  in  annihilation.  A  somewhat  stern  and  ener- 
getic manliness  is  needed  in  the  character  of  a  highly 
educated  man  before  he  can  look  forward  with  joy  to 
living  for  ever.  Increase  of  knowledge  and  increased 
sensitiveness  of  feeling  increase  the  pain  of  living ;  and, 
though  they  also  increase  its  joy,  yet  Ave  begin  to  fear 
joy,  for  Ave  know  the  reaction  Avhich  follows  it.  "  Can 
we  bear,"  we  ask,  "going  on  with  this  struggle  for- 
ever?" Yes,  Ave  can;  but  only  Avhen  Ave  are  i)ossessed 
by  the  noblest  and  the  strongest  ideas,  Avlien  Ave  enter 
into  the  struggle  as  men  who  are  resolved  not  to  re- 
treat a  single  step.  Slowly,  then,  as  we  grow  through 
long  battle  into  veteran  warriors,  we  feel,  not  the  lan- 
guid pleasure  in  beauty,  but  the  glorious  joy  of  the  Avar 
for  right ;  and  to  lixe  forever  becomes  the  first  desire  of 
life,  for  we  know  that  it  means  life  in  union  with 
eterna'  Goodness,  Truth,  and  Love. 

This  sort  of  manliness  the  exclusively  fpsthetic  life 
does  not  cherish,  but  enfeebles.  It  produces  a  soft, 
rather  mournful  habit  of  mind  :  it  unnerves  the  more 
active  powers,  it  makes  men  shrink  from  the  clash  of 
life;  its  devotion  to  beauty,  for  beauty''s  sake  alone, 
blurs  the  sharpness  of  the  lines  Avhich  divide  right  and 
Avrong :  everything  which  charms  the  senses,  proA'ided 
the  charm  be  a  delicate  one,  is  lovely,  and  Avhether  it 
is  morally  lovely  or  not  is  a  secondary  consideration. 
Pain,  therefore,  disease,  strong  effort,  .the  struggle  of 
doubt,  the  labor  to  find  answers  to  great  problems,  such 
as  this  of  immortality,  become  bitter  and  distressful; 
and  in  absolute  seeking  after  and  finding  of  the  beauti- 
ful here,  in  exquisite  enjoyment  of  it  when  found,  and  in 


IMMORTALITY. 


313 


exquisite  regret  of  it  wlieii  it  can  l)c  no  more  enjoyed,  all 
hope,  nay,  all  possibility  of  enjoying  another  life  than 
•the  present,  j^asses  aAvay,  and  life  becomes  in  youtii  a 
passionate  desire  to  get  all  the  joy  and  beauty  jiossible 
before  old  age  comes,  and  in  old  age  a  wailing  memory 
of  jjast  delight,  and  a  sorrowful  waiting  in  as  much 
quiet  as  possible  for  the  everlasting  sleep.  "  Why  enter 
another  world?  No  other  world  can  be  lovelier  than 
this;  and,  if  I  may  not  have  this,  I  do  not  care  for 
another." 

The  reasons  why  many  working-men  reject  immor- 
tality, I  have  spoken  of  elsewhere ;  but  there  is  one  rea^ 
son  common  to  them  and  to  many  educated  men.  It  is 
that  we  are  living  in  a  revolutionary  period  of  thought, 
and  the  very  fact  that  any  ojjinion  is  an  old  one  is  enough 
to  subject  it  to  attack.  Now,  in  the  general  revolt  against 
things  accredited  by  custom,  not  only  is  the  orthodox 
faith  involved,  but  also  beliefs  which,  though  included  in 
Christianity,  are  older  than  it.  Among  these  is  the  be- 
lief in  immortality.  We  are  doubting  now  the  doctrine 
that  the  ancient  Persian,  Hindoo,  and  Hebrew  clung  to, 
that  Cicero  and  Plato  rejoiced  in  holding,  that  the  Maho- 
metan does  not  dream  of  denying.  It  seems  as  if  on 
this  subject  the  whole  world  were  going  back  into  the 
old  savage,  or  into  even  a  less  noble  condition ;  for  I 
suppose  no  man  in  hours  of  sober  judgment  has  any 
doubt  as  to  the  nobleness  of  the  idea  of  immortality, 
and  the  degradation  involved  in  the  idea  of  annihi- 
lation. But  the  truth  is  that  a  vast  deal  of  the  denial 
of  the  former  among  the  working-classes  and  among  the 
young  men  and  women  of  the  upper  classes  is  not 
owing  to  any  thought  being  exijended  on  the  subject, 


314 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


but  simply  to  the  revolutionary  impulse  in  them.  "  The 
thing  is  old,  let  ns  get  rid  of  it.  The  conservative 
feeling  sujiports  it :  everything  -which  conservatism  sup- 
ports we  attack.  Let  us  have  something  new."  And 
it  is  not  unamusing  —  if  we  put  the  religious  feeling 
about  it  aside  —  to  watch  the  self-conscious  audacity 
with  which  peo])le  try  to  awake  one's  astonishment,  and 
really  awake  one's  ])ity,  by  airing  in  society  their  faith 
in  anniliilation,  as  if  to  believe  in  it  were  not  intellect- 
uallv  and  morally  a  miserable  business. 

One  would  despair  of  the  jirogress  of  mankind,  if  one 
thought  tliat  this  would  last.  But  revolutionary  jieriods 
end  by  finding  a  new  channel  for  their  waters ;  and, 
though  the  exhausted  ideas  of  the  ])ast  j)erish  in  the 
whirlpool,  the  noble  ideas  live  and  flow  on  witli  tlie 
new  waters.  We  are  now  in  a  kind  of  backwater  of 
the  great  river  of  Progress,  and  spinning  round  and 
round  in  a  confusion  of  eddies  and  efforts  to  get  on. 
Wlien  we  have  found  our  fresh  thoughts  and  got  them 
clear,  we  shall  get  out  of  the  backwater  witli  a  rush, 
and  stream  on  in  that  which  I  like  better  than  revolu- 
tion,—  steady  movement,  aware  of  itself,  to  distinctly 
recognized  ends.  But  at  present  every  one  is  naturally 
dissatisfied  with  the  want  of  ])urpose,  of  clear  aims,  of 
any  coherent  ideas  in  social,  political,  religious,  and 
artistic  life.  And  the  dissatisfaction  shows  itself  chiefly 
in  all  niattei-s  whicli  l»elong  to  the  realm  of  art  ;  for 
in  art  one  always  flnds  the  more  subtile  asj)ects  of  any 
society  reflected.  Our  more  modern  poets  and  painters 
find  nothing  calm  or  perfect  enough  in  modern  life  to 
represent.  They  go  back  out  of  the  present  to  the 
past :  they  tell  us  stories  and  paint  us  scenes  from  the 


IMMORTALITY. 


315 


old  Greek  and  Medijeval  life.  They  try  to  recover 
the  dead  motives  of  a  dead  life  ;  and  a  Avhole  school  has 
sprung  n]),  both  in  poetry  and  on  canvas,  which  pos- 
sesses much  charm,  but  wliicli  is  essentially  mournful 
and  retrograde,  Avhich  smells  of  musk  and  ambergris, 
whose  ])assion  is  more  tliat  of  exliaustcd  feeling  trying 
by  morbid  means  to  sting  itself  into  joy  tlian  tlie  frank 
and  healthy  passion  of  youtli,  whose  notes  are  not  native 
to  Englisli  soil,  and  whose  work  does  not  smack  of  tlie 
fresh  air,  nor  seem  done  face  to  face  with  nature,  but 
smells  of  scented  rooms,  lit  uj)  with  artificial  liglit. 

Our  art  has  been  driven  from  tlie  present  to  the  past, 
and  tliose  who  enjoy  and  love  it  naturally  cease  to  feel 
interest  in  the  future:  the  whole  tone  of  feeling  it 
encourages  tends  to  lessen  the  care  for  and  the  belief  in 
a  life  to  come. 

But  this  cannot  last :  tlie  present  is  always  too  strong 
for  the  i>ast ;  and  art  and  jihilosophy  and  literature,  and 
with  them  educated  society,  will  emerge  from  this  back- 
water, wlien  modern  life  finds  clear  aims,  and  flo\v  on  in 
new  channels.  Active  life  in  the  ])resent  will  then  pro- 
duce art  and  literature  to  represent  it,  and  the  interest 
in  the  jjresent  will  make  the  future  so  interesting  that 
the  tendency  to  belie\  e  in  immortality  will  take  to  itself 
fresh  life.  By  that  time,  Christianity  —  I  mean  our  j)res- 
ent  form  of  it,  which  is  also  in  tliis  revolutionary  stage 
of  confusion,  changing  old  opinions  for  new- — -will  also 
have  refitted  itself  to  the  higher  tiioughts  and  wants  of 
men ;  and  its  doctrine  of  inunortality,  freed  from  the 
low  ideas  with  which  it  has  been  surrounded  by  a  dying 
theology,  present  once  more  to  men,  longing  again  to 
live  forever  because  they  lia^  e  found  a  vital  jiresent,  a 
glorious  ideal  to  which  they  can  ;is]iir('  with  joy. 


316 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


For,  after  all,  wliat  is  at  the  root  of  this  belief  in  an- 
nihilation? It  is  that  our  theology  has  been  for  some 
years  presenting  to  us  an  idea  of  God  wholly  inadequate 
to  our  present  intellectual  and  moral  conceptions,  and 
an  idea  of  man  which  we  now  reject  as  ignoble,  and  as 
untrue  because  ignoble.  Not  that  this  idea  of  God  was 
inadequate  to  ])ast  society,  or  that  idea  of  man  ignoble. 
They  were  then  as  high  as  most  men  could  receive, 
though  we  always  find  a  few  who  protested  against 
them,  and  rose  above  the  common  level.  But  thought 
on  these  subjects  is  now  up  to  that  of  the  higher  spirits 
of  the  past,  and  theology  must  rise  to  the  moral  and 
intellectual  level  of  the  present  before  immortality  can 
be  a  imiversal  faith  again. 

An  adequate  idea  of  God,  a  noble  idea  of  man, — these 
are  the  ideas  which,  reintroduced  into  theology,  will 
bring  back  the  belief  in  immortality ;  for  they  will 
render  the  theory  of  annihilation  intellectually  as  well 
as  morally  absurd. 

The  common  notion  of  God  divides  his  being  from 
the  universe  and  from  mankind.  It  is  so  afraid  of 
being  called  jjantheistic  that  it  forgets  the  truth  which 
is  in  pantheism.  If  nature  and  mankind  are,  as  a 
whole  or  in  any  of  their  parts,  capable  of  being  truly 
severed  from  God,  so  that  the  one  runs  along  like  a 
machine  which  may  run  down,  or  that  in  the  other  one 
soul  can,  by  becoming  eternally  evil,  be  eternally  divided 
from  the  Godhead,  then  God  cannot  be  considered  ab- 
solute nor  all-comprehending  nor  all-i^owerful  for  good. 
There  are  jaoints  at  which  Ids  power  fails,  his  goodness 
retires  from  the  field, —  points  at  which  he  is  forced  to 
struggle;  and  the  possibility  of  inferring  these  things 


IMMORTALITY. 


317 


from  the  orthodox  idea  of  God  is  surely  inconsistent 
with  tlie  idea  of  liim  wliicli  we  feel  iioto  that  we  ought  to 
jjossess.  It  is  really  less  than  we  can  conceive,  and  for  us 
to  worship  it  any  longer  is  idolatry.  We  must  have  an 
adequate  idea  of  God ;  and,  till  we  get  it  into  theology,  a 
great  number  of  men  who  think  deejily  will  be  atheists, 
and  necessarily  disbelievers  in  immortality. 

Again,  owing  to  this  imcultivated  notion  of  a  God 
who  sits  apart,  at  a  distance  from  us,  we  are  forced  to 
assume  another  great  power  in  the  imiverse.  If  any 
one  of  us,  or  anything,  can  have  or  retain  being,  ajjart 
from  him,  then  there  nmst  be  another  source  of  being 
than  his.  And,  j'l'^ictically  sj^eaking,  that  is  what  is 
held.  The  artist  talks  of  nature,  the  philosopher  of 
law,  the  theologian  of  the  devil;  and  we  have  a  dual 
government  of  the  world,  in  which  God  tends  to  become 
more  and  more  a  remote  and  njisty  i:)hantom. 

Now,  I  say,  if  we  believe  in  a  God  at  all,  that  the  only 
adequate  conception  of  him  which  will  satisfy  our  intel- 
lect and  heart  alike  is  one  which  conceives  of  him  as  the 
sole  self-existing  Being  and  of  everything  and  everyone 
as  havincr  Beinc:  only  in  his  Bcinsf.  The  life  of  the  uni- 
verse,  of  matter  and  spirit,  is  one  l!f\\ — the  Life  of  God 
infinitely  conditioned  in  and  through  a  myriad  forms. 
There  is  not  a  shred  of  the  world  called  the  world  of 
nature  which  is  not  held  in  him,  and  is  not,  indeed,  his 
thought.  We  all  are,  only  because  we  are  in  him  and 
part  of  his  being,  our  personality  held  in  his  jicrsonality. 
Do  not  call  this  jjantheism.  It  may  be  pantheism,  but  it 
is  something  more  than  pantheism.  It  is  not  saying  the 
imiverse  is  God :  it  is  saying  God  is  the  universe,  and 
something  more  than  the  universe.    It  is  the  doctrine 


318 


FAITH  AKD  FREEDOM. 


whicli  Saint  Paul  inferred  from  the  old  Greek  poet :  "  In 
him  we  live  and  moA'e  and  have  our  being ;  as  certain 
also  of  your  own  poets  have  said,  For  Ave  are  also  his 
offsj^ring."  It  is  the  doctrine  of  Saint  Paul  himself : 
"Of  him  and  by  him  and  through  him  are  all  things"; 
and  the  moment  Ave  fully  conceive  that  he  alone  is,  and 
that  nothing  is  whii'h  is  not  he,  it  becomes  intellectually 
absurd  that  any  soul  should  go  out  as  a  candle.  Once 
haA'ing  been,  once  haA  ing  had  consciousness,  once  having 
had  personality,  it  is  impossible  to  lose  being,  conscious- 
ness, and  jiorsonality.  That  AA^hich  is  in  God,  in  eternal 
Being,  cannot  perish. 

But  it  is  7iot  intellectually  absurd  when  God's  existence 
is  denied,  and  to  this  conclusion  men  come  Avho  think  of 
what  they  mean  by  annihilation.  They  knoAV  that  the 
denial  of  immortality  irresistibly  infers  atheism ;  that,  if 
there  is  Eternal  Being,  those  Avho  haA-e  issued  from  that 
Beins  and  haA^e  their  beina:  in  him  must  be  immortal: 
Ave  cannot  think  the  one  Avithout  thinking  the  other. 
And  I  Avant  those  Avho  so  lightly  talk  of  man  dying 
forcA-er  to  clearly  understand  either  that  they  are  talking 
nonsense,  if  they  confess  a  God,  or  that  they  are  logically 
driven  into  atheism. 

For  not  only  is  the  notion  of  annihilation  of  person- 
ality—  that  is,  of  our  consciousness,  Avill,  and  character 
—  intellectually  absurd  in  face  of  an  adequate  intellect- 
ual conception  of  God,  it  is  also  moi-.ally  absurd  in  face 
of  an  adequate  moral  conception  of  God. 

But  the  fact  is  that  it  is  not  morally  absurd  to  many 
of  us,  because  Ave  have  no  adequate  moral  conception  of 
God.  The  moral  inadequacy  of  our  thought  of  God  is 
chiefly  in  this,  that  Ave  accept  a  teaching  Avhich  thinks 


IMMORTALITY. 


319 


of  liim  as  liaviiig  no  duties  to  liis  children.  We  are  told 
that  he  has  a  Sovereign's  riglit  to  do  Aviiat  he  likes  with 
us,  and  that  ^ve  have  no  business  to  judge  as  to  tlie  right 
and  wrong  of  liis  actions. 

I  deny  that  at  once  on  the  ground  already  laid  down, 
that  our  being  is  held  in  God's  being,  and  therefore  that 
what  is  truth  and  justice  and  l<>\'e  to  us  is  the  same  in 
kind  in  us  as  in  God,  and  that  it  is  absurd  to  tliink  other- 
wise. But,  as  these  teachers  do  think  otherAvise,  they  go 
on  to  infer  that  things  Avhicli  Avould  seem  unjust  if  done 
by  a  man  are  not  unjust  if  done  by  God.  We  are  told 
that  he  creates  us  to  damn  us,  or  leaves  us  alone  to  ruin 
ourselves,  or  that  he  allows  us  to  be  children  of  the 
devil,  things  so  absolutely  immoral  in  an  earthly  father 
that  Ave  are  driA^en  either  into  a  state  of  blind  submis- 
sion in  Avhich  intellect  is  destroyed  and  the  moral  sense 
utterly  confused,  or  into  absolute  rcA'olt,  or  into  a  kind 
of  hojjeless  drifting  carelessness  of  the  Avhole  matter. 
And  in  the  last  state  of  mind  are  those  who  still  cling  by 
old  custom  to  belief  in  God  and  immortality,  but  avIio 
have  no  real  jileasure  or  interest  in  their  belief  in  whom 
it  produces  no  result. 

NoAV,  such  a  Avant  of  A'ital  faith  is  due  to  a  mean  con- 
cej^tion  of  their  own  moral  nature  folloAving  on  a  mean 
conception  of  God's  moral  nature.  "  He  has  left  me  to 
myself,"  they  say ;  "  nay,  more,  I  am  told  that  I  am  vile 
and  Avorthless  spiritually,  that  my  nature  is  utterly  cor- 
rupt. If  I  am  so  bad,"  they  go  on,  "  Avhy  should  I  care 
Avhat  becomes  of  me?  If  my  nature  is  corrupt  througli- 
out,  what  is  the  use  of  aspiring  to  be  better?  Nay,  I  do 
not  believe  in  my  aspirations  :  am  I  not  told  that  tliey 
themselves  are  Avicked?"    This  is  the  Avay  they  have 


320 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


argued  long  ago.  Now  they  have  ceased  to  trouble 
themselves  about  the  matter ;  but  the  result  of  the  argu- 
ment remains  as  an  unconscious  influence  below  the  sur- 
face of  their  life,  and  the  effect  is  a  total  loss  of  interest 
in  iininortality,  amounting  to  practical  disbelief  of  it. 

All  this  is  done  away  with  by  a  true  moral  conception 
of  God  in  his  relation  to  us,  based  on  the  moral  ideas 
which  we  possess  ourselves  from  him.  He  has  sent  us 
forth  from  himself  :  therefore, -he  is  bound  to  be,  we  feel, 
in  the  highest  conceival)le  sense,  a  Father  to  us,  and  he 
is  oiu-  Father.  We  can  never,  then,  be  separated  from 
him,  never  let  alone  by  him,  never  shut  uji  by  him  in 
eternal  evil.  Our  Being  has  come  direct  from  his,  and 
is  now  in  his  Being :  therefore,  our  nature  can  never  be 
utterly  vile.  Our  aspirations  are  his  voice  in  us:  our 
justice,  truth,  and  love,  svich  as  they  are,  are  still  the 
same  in  kind  as  his. 

He  is  pure  moral  being :  therefore,  since  we  cannot 
divide  ourselves  from  him,  and  since  he  is  bound  as  a 
Father  to  educate  us,  we  must  reach  in  the  end  jiure 
moral  being. 

It  is  thus  that  from  an  adequate  nioral  concei^tion  of 
God  we  arrive  at  the  second  thing  I  said  we  wanted  to 
restore  to  xis  the  belief  in  immortality, —  an  adequate 
conception  of  man.  ^Ye  are  inseparably  united  to  pure 
intellectual  and  moral  Being,  and  in  that  union  we  are 
great,  and  do  great  things  of  the  brain  and  of  the  spirit. 

And  now,  in  conclusion,  taking  both  of  these  things 
together,  the  greatness  of  man  in  God  and  the  absolute 
morality  of  God,  wliich  we  now  know  is  in  kind  the  same 
as  ours,  let  us  see  if  annihilation  be  not  morally  absurd, 
if  the  being  of  God  be  granted. 


IMMORTALITY. 


321 


Of  course  I  sliall  speak  in  Avliat  follows  of  good  men, 
and  it  will  be  said  that  the  argument  does  not  prove  that 
the  wicked  will  not  be  annihilated.  But  I  have  already- 
spoken  of  this  question  in  previous  sermons,  and  I  hold 
that  the  destruction  of  the  wicked  is  morally  and  logi- 
cally impossible,  if  there  be  a  God  who  is  the  only  self- 
existing  Being,  and  if  he  be  a  moral  Being.  It  is  a 
question  of  redem])ti()n  beyond  this  earth,  but  the  pres- 
ent argument  deals  with  the  question  as  it  lies  before  us 
in  this  world. 

1^0  one  can  deny,  who  is  not  pi'ejudiced  by  the  low 
theological  view  of  our  nature,  that  it  is  capable  of 
greatness  of  character.  In  every  age  there  have  been 
men  who  have  forgotten  self  for  the  sake  of  right  and 
truth  and  for  a  noble  cause,  even  though  the  self-forget- 
fulness  meant  death, —  men  whose  glory  shines  with  the 
serene  light  of  stai's  in  the  sky  which  arches  over  his- 
tory. Others,  too,  have  been,  whose  path  has  lain  apart 
from  fame,  the  quiet  martyrs  of  self-surrender,  who  have 
died  to  the  joys  of  life  for  the  sake  of  others'  joy,  or 
borne  in  the  eloquent  silence  of  resignation  bitter  j^ain 
and  grief. 

And  has  all  that  perished  for  them?  Has  the  noble 
effort  and  the  faithful  life  been  in  vain  for  those  who 
lived  it  ?  Are  they  only  to  live  in  our  memory  and  love, 
but  they  themselves  "  to  be  blown  about  the  desert  dust, 
or  sealed  within  the  iron  hills"?  It  revolts  all  our 
moral  feeling,  if  we  believe  in  a  moral  God.  Either 
there  is  no  God,  whose  children  we  are,  or  the  denial  of 
immortality  is  absurd.  There  is  nothing  between  athe- 
ism and  immortality. 

And  that  infinite  thirst  of  knowledge  we  possess,  that 


322 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


poAver  of  thought  which  sweeps  us  beyond  the  world  of 
sense  and  time;  that  inexhaustible  activity  of  imagina- 
tion by  which  we  create  now  worlds ;  our  jiassionate  cry 
for  the  rest  which  lies  in  harmony  of  nature;  our  desire 
for  fuller  life,  when  life  is  filled  with  great  thoughts  and 
jiure  and  passionate  love  of  man;  that  yearning  of  the 
spirit  for  freedom  from  sin  and  for  union  with  truth  ; 
that  ceaseless  cry  for  more  light ;  our  delight  in  rever- 
encing something  better  than  ourselves,  in  ideal  ex- 
cellence ;  our  intense  sensibility  to  beauty  and  sublimity 
in  nature, —  have  these  no  final  cause,  if  God  exists? 
Did  he  give  us  these  powers  of  intellect  and  heart  and 
spirit, —  powers  which  draw  their  fire  from  the  fire  of 
his  eternal  Thought  and  Will, —  only  to  resume  them 
into  himself,  to  lure  us  on  to  work  and  then  to  quench 
our  light ;  to  make  our  hopes  our  hell,  our  noblest  long- 
ings our  deejaest  misery ;  to  extinguish  our  exhaustless 
effort  and  curiosity  in  the  degradation  of  an  eternal 
sleep  ?  Did  he  give  us  that  love  of  the  ideal,  that  de- 
light in  beauty,  that  tearful  interest  in  his  universe, 
only  to  make  the  grave  and  the  wretched  dust  of  our 
corruption  the  vain  and  miseral)le  end?  Has  he  written 
his  scorn  on  all  our  aspirations  after  truth  and  light  and 
holiness?  Does  he  smile  with  contemjituous  pity  when 
men's  hearts  go  uj)  to  him  in  praise  for  the  freshness 
and  radiance  of  the  spring?  It  is  incredible.  Either 
the  atheist  is  right,  or  that  immortality  is  untrue  is 
absurd. 

Look,  too,  at  our  triumph  over  death.  When  decay 
usurps  the  powers,  and  memory  and  life  slip  from  us 
like  a  dream,  it  is  then  that  our  inner  being  most  often 
rises  into  beauty  and  victory.    And,  when  the  last  act 


IMMORTALITY. 


323 


of  the  man  is  the  assertion  of  his  immortality,  does  the 
Lord  of  Eigliteousness  contradict  him  in  contempt?  Is 
the  spirit  on  the  verge  of  its  greatest  loss  at  its  very 
noblest  moment  of  gain?  Does  it  reach  with  faithful 
effort,  and  thrill  with  divine  hoj^e,  the  mountain  peak, 
only  to  topple  over  the  precipice  of  annihilation  ?  Then 
those  who  believe  in  God  are  the  real  fools  of  the 
world. 

Our  soul  swells  with  reverence  and  love  for  those 
Avho  held  life  as  nothing  in  comparison  with  truthful- 
ness to  right ;  our  soul  is  full  of  a  sad  condemnation  of 
those  who  pi'efer  to  live  when  life  is  infamous  ;  and  yet, 
if  annihilation  be  true,  God  despises  the  nobility  which 
we  revere,  and  tacitly  approves  the  infamy  which  we 
condemn.  But  this  is  incredible,  if  we  conceive  of  God 
as  moral :  it  is  hideous.  Either,  then,  there  is  no  God, 
or  annihilation  is  false. 

Finally,  it  is  true  of  a  noble  human  life  that  it  finds 
its  highest  enjoyment  in  the  consciousness  of  ^^rogress. 
Our  times  of  greatest  pleasure  are  when  we  have  won 
some  higher  peak  of  difficulty,  trodden  under  foot  some 
evil,  refused  some  pleasant  temptation  for  truth's  sake, 
been  swept  out  of  our  narrow  self  by  love,  and  felt  day 
by  day,  in  such  high  labors,  so  sure  a  growth  of  moral 
strength  within  us  that  we  cannot  conceive  of  an  end  of 
growth. 

And,  when  all  that  is  most  vigorous  within  us,  does 
God, —  pure,  moi-al  Being, —  does  God  say  No?  Is  that 
insatiable  delight  in  progress  given  to  the  insect  of  an 
hour?  Does  there  seem  to  be  a  Spirit  who  leads  us 
through  life,  conquering  the  years  in  us,  redeeming  us 
from  all  evU,  bringing  in  us  calm  out  of  sorrow,  faith 


324 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


out  of  doubt,  strengtli  out  of  trial?  And,  when  he  has 
made  us  great  of  spirit  like  liimself,  does  he  bury  all 
that  Avealth  of  heart  in  nothingness? 

What  incredible  thing  is  this?  Only  credible  if  there 
be  no  God. 


LETTER  TO  THE  CONGREGATION  OF 
BEDFORD  CHAPEL. 


''SALT  WITHOUT  SAVOR." 


LETTER  TO  THE  COITGREGATIO]sr 
OF  BEDFORD  CHAPEI.. 


To  THE  Congregation  of  Bedford  Chapel,  Bloomsbury  : 

It  is  only  after  serious  and  long  consideration  that  I 
have  come  to  the  resolution  of  which  I  now  inform  my 
congregation.  I  have  decided  that  it  is  my  duty  to 
leave  the  Churcli  of  England,  and  I  have  already  jjlaced 
the  resignation  of  my  license  in  the  hands  of  the  Bishop 
of  London.  Wlien,  some  years  ago,  Bedford  Chapel 
was  presented  to  me,  the  theological  opinions  I  held 
were  legally  tenable  in  the  Church  of  England,  but  they 
were  not  in  accordance  with  its  orthodox  scheme  of  doc- 
trine. I  made  use  of  the  liberty  the  law  afforded  me, 
and  claimed  the  compromise  which  the  Church,  desirous 
to  expand  its  circle,  offers  so  freely  to  its  members. 
Nevertheless,  I  felt  even  then  that  my  oijinions  might 
settle  into  some  form  which  the  large  liberty  of  the 
Cliurch  could  not  tolerate;  and  I  accepted  the  gift  of 
the  chajiel  on  tlie  exj^ressed  condition  that  I  should  not 
be  prevented  from  stating  opinions  which  might  hazard 
my  position  in  the  Cliurch  of  England.  Tliat  time  has 
now  arrived.  As  long  as  I  had  any  doubt  as  to  the  in- 
credibility of  miracles,  I  could  justly  remain  a  minister 
of  the  Church.    I  was  also  bound  by  a  multitude  of  con- 


328 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


siderations  not  to  act  on  impulse  or  in  a  hnrry.  The 
matter  was  too  grave  for  liaste,  but  it  was  also  too  grave 
to  lay  aside.  I  considered  it  for  four  years,  but  at  last 
to  consider  it  any  longer  meant  to  wilfully  blind  myself 
to  tlie  truth  for  the  sake  of  my  jJosition.  Therefore, 
some  Sundays  ago,  in  a  series  of  sermons  on  Miracles 
and  on  Authority,  I  expressed  the  conclusions  at  which 
I  had  arrived.  These  conclusions,  being  equivalent  to 
an  assertion  of  the  incredibility  of  niiracle,  and  to  a 
denial  of  the  exclusiA'e  authority  of  the  Church  or  of  the 
Bible,  compel  me  to  say  that  I  cannot  any  longer,  with 
truth  to  myself  or  loyalty  to  the  Church,  remain  its 
minister.  The  form  of  doctiine  to  which  the  Church  of 
England  has  committed  itself  appears  to  stand  on  the 
Miracle  of  the  Incarnation  as  a  building  on  its  founda- 
tion. Not  to  accept  that  miracle  is  to  separate  myself, 
not,  I  hope,  from  the  spirit,  but  from  the  external  form 
of  the  faith  as  laid  down  by  the  Church  of  England ;  and 
it  is  the  inability  to  confess  this  miracle  Avhich,  beyond 
all  else,  forces  me  out  of  its  communion.  But,  though 
I  depart  on  this  ground,  the  rejection  of  the  miraculous 
leaves  all  the  great  spii'itual  truths  I  ha^-e  been  accus- 
tomed to  teach  untouched  by  any  doubt  of  mine.  They 
are  now,  in  my  belief,  more  clear  than  before,  more  use- 
ful for  men's  inspiration  and  comfort.  They  are  freed, 
as  it  seems  to  me,  from  errors  which  may  have  once  been 
their  strength,  but  which  are  now  their  weakness.  I  re- 
joice that  I  can  now  leave  on  one  side  these  supports  of 
truth,  and  teach  the  truth  itself  alone.  There  will  be, 
therefore,  no  more  change  in  my  preaching  than  that 
which  will  naturally  follow  on  the  greater  sense  of  free- 
dom that  it  will  possess.    Nor  do  I  leave  the  Chui-ch  to 


LETTER  TO  THE  CONGREGATION. 


329 


become  a  mere  Theist.  I  believe,  tliougli  tlie  Person  of 
Christ  is  no  longer  miraculous  to  me,  though  I  cannot 
consider  him  as  absolute  Gorl,  yet  that  God  has  sjiecially 
revealed  himself  through  Christ,  that  the  highest  relig- 
ion of  mankind  is  founded  on  his  life  and  revelation,  that 
the  sjnrit  of  his  life  is  the  life  and  salvation  of  men,  and 
that  he  himself  is  the  Head  and  Re^jresentative  of  Man- 
kind,—  Jesus  Christ  our  Lord.  Since  that  is  the  case, 
and  since  I  wish  to  sever  myself  as  little  as  possible  from 
a  long  and  noble  tradition  of  religion,  and  from  the  early 
associations  of  a  great  communion,  the  English  Church 
Service,  Avith  some  omissions,  will  be  still  read  in  Bed- 
ford Chapel.  The  chief  of  those  omissions  will  naturally 
be  the  creeds.  They  exact  agreement  with  their  clauses 
from  those  who  recite  them.  It  is  different  with  the 
l^rayers  and  Christian  hymns  contained  in  the  service. 
They  are  subject  to  the  selection  of  the  worshiijpers ; 
and  no  one  while  I  read  them  will  now  impute  to  me 
doctrines  which  I  do  not  hold,  or  mistake  my  position. 
I  can  use  them  as  the  best  vehicles  of  religious  emotion 
which  we  possess,  without  being  sujiposed  to  agree  with 
all  the  theological  views  of  their  writers.  It  is  not  with- 
out a  natural  regret  that  I  part  from  a  communion  in 
which  I  have  served  for  more  than  twenty  years,  and 
from  those  old  and  dear  associations  which  have  been 
with  me  from  my  boyhood.  And  I  must  also  feel  some 
sadness  for  the  loss  of  many  who  Avill  leave  my  congre- 
gation and  listen  to  me  no  more.  But  the  time  has  come 
when,  at  any  cost,  I  must  say  farewell,  and  look  forward 
to  a  new  and  untried  life,  in  which  I  pray  I  shall  have 
the  help  and  blessing  of  God.  But,  when  I  look  forward, 
I  cannot  regret  the  parting.    I  am  glad  to  be  freed  from 


330 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


compromise,  glad  to  be  able  to  speak  unfettered  by  a 
system,  glad  to  have  a  clear  position,  glad  to  pass  out  of 
an  atmosphere  which  had  become  impossible  to  breathe, 
because  I  was  supposed,  however  I  might  assert  the 
contrary,  to  believe  all  the  doctrines  of  the  Church  of 
England  in  the  way  the  Church  confessed  them. 

Stopford  a.  Brooke. 

1  Manchestek  Square,  London,  Sept.  15,  1880. 


SALT  WITHOUT  SAVOR. 


October  17,  1880. 

"  Salt  is  good ;  but  if  the  salt  has  lost  its  savor,  wherewith  will  ye 
season  it  ?  "  —  Mark  ix.,  50. 

SixcE  I  List  met  you,  I  have  taken  a  step  which  changes 
many  tilings,  both  for  you  who  have  listened  to  me  for 
so  long  and  for  myself.  I  have  left  the  Church  of  Eng- 
land, and  this  chapel  has  entered  upon  a  new  life.  It  is 
with  mingled  seriousness  and  joy  that  I  have  departed. 
Indeed,  there  can  be  few  hours  more  grave  in  a  man's 
life  than  that  in  which,  late  in  his  career  and  no  longer 
young,  he  leaves  the  home  that  has  sheltered  him  for  so 
many  years,  with  all  its  associations  and  traditions,  and 
sets  sail  an  emigrant  to  a  new  land,  to  till  it  and  to 
keep  it.  I  have  spoken  in  this  personal  way,  because  I 
wish  my  congregation  to  understand  and  feel  as  deeply 
as  they  can  do  for  me  how  serious  is  the  step  that  I  have 
made,  and  how  seriously  I  have  taken  it;  and  I  ask  them 
to  believe  that  I  have  not  rashly  done  this  thing,  that  I 
have  counted  tlie  cost  of  it,  and  that  I  mean  with  God's 
help  to  work  it  out,  and  I  have  asked  for  his  help  in  my 
future  life,  which  is  the  power  of  the  soul  and  the  insjji- 
ration  of  labor.  I  have  made  these  personal  allusions, 
because  I  want  you  to  feel  and  think  as  seriously  of  the 


332 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


duty  I  owe  to  those  of  you  who  may  choose  to  remain 
with  me  or  to  come  to  me  as  I  think  of  the  step  I  have 
taken.  I  was  bound  not  to  make  such  a  change,  unless 
I  clearly  knew  in  matters  of  religious  thinking  and  of 
rehgious  life  where  I  was  and  what  I  meant,  and  unless 
I  stated  with  all  tlie  clearness  I  could  muster  why  I 
have  changed  my  place,  and  what  I  thought  of  those 
great  religious  truths  to  which  I  cling  with  all  my  heart 
and  soul  and  intellect.  It  will  be  necessary,  then,  for 
some  Sundays  that  I  should  si^eak  on  these  truths,  in 
order  tliat  you  may  know  my  views,  and  may  either 
leave  or  stay  with  me.  I  am  glad  to  be  free  from  a  posi- 
tion of  comjjromise  :  I  am  now  able  to  express  my  views 
"with  absolute  freedom ;  but,  on  this  day  when  I  begin 
my  work,  I  am  forced,  somewhat  against  my  will,  to 
make  a  personal  explanation,  and  to  sjieak  this  morning 
of  some  reasons  I  have  for  leaving  the  Church,  and  this 
evening  of  the  reasons  I  have  for  making  those  changes 
in  the  service  which  you  have  already  observed  in  the 
paper  which  I  sent  to  my  congregation,  and  which  many 
of  those  who  belong  to  my  congregation  have  seen  else- 
where. I  said  that  the  main  reason  for  my  departure 
from  the  Church  was  that  I  had  ceased  to  believe  that 
miracles  were  credible ;  and  that,  since  the  English 
Church  founds  its  whole  scheme  of  doctrine  on  the 
Miracle  of  the  Incarnation,  disbelief  in  that  miracle  put 
me  outside  of  tlie  doctrine  of  the  Church.  That  was 
the  crowning  cause  of  my  action ;  and  I  shall  explain  it 
more  fully  when  I  come  hereafter  to  speak  of  the  incar- 
nation, and  necessarily  of  the  personality  of  Christ.  It 
was  enough  to  state  that  reason  alone  in  a  letter  which 
was  bound  to  be  short,  and  in  which  I  naturally  chose  to 


SALT  WITHOUT  SAVOR. 


333 


put  forward  the  most  prominent  cause  of  action.  More- 
over, to  set  aside  the  doctrine  of  the  Miraculous  Incar- 
nation, was  to  set  myself  apart,  as  I  wished  to  do,  from 
the  whole  scheme  of  doctrine  jjut  forth  with  respect  to 
God  and  man  by  the  High  and  Low  Church  jiartics  in 
the  Church.  The  reason  I  gave  then  was  quite  full 
enough  in  itself  to  explain  my  secession ;  but  behind 
that  there  were  other  reasons  which  I  am  now  bound  to 
lay  befoi-e  you,  and  which  will  more  fully  explain  what 
I  have  done  and  where  I  stand.  I  left  the  Church,  not 
only  from  disagreement  with  its  doctrines,  but  because  I 
had  come  to  disaj^prove  of  the  very  existence  of  it  as  an 
ecclesiastical  body,  especially  of  it  as  connected  with  the 
State,  and  also  of  its  existence  in  relation  to  politics, 
theology,  and  religion. 

In  all  I  am  now  going  to  say,  I  must  not  be  understood 
to  say  one  woi-d  against  the  men  or  those  who  belong  to 
the  Church,  nor  indeed  against  the  noble  working  of  the 
Church  itself.  I  sliall  speak  simply  and  clearly  of  the 
theory  on  which  the  Church  exists,  and  which  I  felt  it 
imjjossiblc  for  me  to  live  up  to  or  to  retain.  Politically, 
the  theory  is  mixed  up  Avith  the  old  aristocratic  system 
which  has  perished  or  is  perishing  so  rapidly,  the  very 
essence  of  which  is  in  op^^osition,  as  I  think,  to  all  the 
moving  and  living  forms  of  society.  Tlie  theory  of  the 
Church  is  an  aristocratic  theory,  and  it  has  ministered  to 
that  imperialistic  conception  of  God  which  in  theology 
has  done  as  much  harm  as  despotism  or  caste  system 
of  any  kind  has  done  to  society.  The  way  tlie  Church 
works  in  society  proves  what  I  contend.  It  has  system- 
atized exclusion  and  supported  caste  in  religion.  It  has 
forced  the  whole  body  of  the  Dissenters  from  its  forms 


334 


FAITH  AND  FEEEDOM. 


to  suffer  under  a  religious  and  social  stigma,  which  is 
scarcely  now  beginning  to  be  removed.  It  claims  to 
separate  from  itself  and  strives  to  keep  down  large 
masses  of  men  whose  spiritual  life  is  as  deep  as  its  own ; 
nor  does  the  Church  recognize  their  religious  move- 
ments as  upon  a  level  with  its  own  movements.  The 
standard  of  worthiness,  then,  in  the  theory  of  the 
Church,  not  of  course  in  Churchmen,  is  not  spiritual 
goodness,  but  union  with  itself.  This  is  not  the  fault 
of  its  members,  but  the  fault  of  its  theory;  but  the  fault 
condemns  the  theory.  Many  Avithin  the  Church  have 
tried  hard  to  do  what  was  right  in  the  matter,  to  hold 
out  the  hand  of  union  to  our  Nonconformists;  but  every 
effort  has  failed,  and  every  effort  will  fail.  The  theory 
of  the  Church  is  too  strong  for  these  men.  I  could  no 
longer  be  mixed  up  with  a  body  whose  very  political 
princij^les  I  hold  in  condemnation,  and  the  very  exist- 
ence of  which,  in  spite  of  aU  the  liberal  men  in  it,  sup- 
ports the  2:)olitical  principles  and  systems  which  I  oppose 
and  shall  ojipose  as  long  as  I  have  breath  to  speak. 

Secondly.  Ecclesiastically,  the  Church  supports  and 
claims  an  outward  authority  for  tlie  faith  of  man.  Its 
system  is  based  on  the  authority  of  a  creed  which  em- 
bodies and  crystallizes  past  religious  thought,  and  makes 
it  still  more  rigid  in  articles;  or  upon  the  infallible  au- 
thority of  the  Bible,  or  ujjon  the  infallible  authority  of 
the  Divine  Spirit  secluded  and  confined  within  the  limits 
of  the  Church  itself.  On  whichever  of  these  forms  of 
authority  Churchmen  base  themselves,  the  Church,  by 
their  voice,  calls  upon  all  men  to  unite  themselves  to 
her,  to  bend  before  these  authorities  or  to  lose  or  imperil 
their  salvation.    It  asks  them,  practically  speaking,  to 


SALT  WITHOUT  SAVOR. 


335 


surrender  a  great  part  of  their  individuality,  and  to 
become  one  consenting  part  of  the  whole.  The  Bible 
has  spoken,  the  Church  has  jsronounced  its  decree,  it  is 
the  part  of  the  laity  only  to  believe  and  to  obey.  The 
inevitable  tendency  of  this  system  and  its  claims  is  to 
make  both  preacher  and  hearer  the  conventional  ser- 
vants, not  of  a  living  word,  but  of  a  literal  system,  bones 
in  a  skeleton,  not  members  of  a  living  body,  slaves  eitlier 
of  a  hierarchy  or  of  a  book;  functionaries  and  listeners 
Avho  do  not  know  what  belongs  to  them,  who  cannot 
move  excejit  in  chains,  and  none  the  less  chains  for  their 
ponderous  covering.  Authority  of  this  kind,  faithfully 
followed  and  faithfully  believed  in,  disarticulates,  I  do 
believe,  in  the  end,  the  backbone  of  the  intellect  and  of 
the  spirit,  and  hangs  lead  upon  the  wings  of  the  religious 
imagination,  binds  the  soul  away  from  sjiiritual  freedom 
into  the  prison  of  the  past,  frequently  reduces  the  con- 
science to  silence,  and  still  more  frequently  sacrifices  the 
reason  upon  the  altar  of  ecclesiastical  theology.  But 
these  powers,  which  it  is  the  inevitable  tendency  of 
authority  to  weaken  and  finally  to  paralyze,  powers  of 
the  reason,  conscience,  and  sj^irit,  are  the  very  and  only 
powers  which  God  has  given  to  us,  whereby  we  can  see 
his  truth  and  recognize  his  word  and  grasjj  to  our  hearts 
the  new  treasure  of  revelation,  which  it  is  his  special 
work  to  declare  as  the  world  advances.  Authority  not 
only  tends  to  enfeeble  the  power  of  the  soul,  but  in  en- 
feebling these  powers  destroys  the  very  conditions  in 
mankind  by  which  the  word  of  God  is  heard  and  under- 
stood. This  is  its  inevitable  tendency,  and  though  there 
are  numbers  in  the  Church  wlio  claim  their  liberty  from 
these  authorities,  and  maintain  their  individual  freedom, 


336 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


and  liold  their  reason,  conscience,  and  spirit  largely  free, 
the  tendency  in  the  end  becomes  too  imxch  for  them,  or 
their  position  becomes  untenable.  Thej'-  cannot  liberal- 
ize wholly  a  Church  based  upon  authority,  and  to  take 
away  these  authorities  from  tlie  Church,  as  many  of 
them  wish  to  do,  will  not  liberalize  it,  but  will  do  away 
with  it  altogether.  It  is  nothing  without  its  system,  and 
its  system  is  authoritative.  How,  then,  Avhen  I  came  to 
feel  tlius  strongly  and  to  express  it  as  I  did  a  few  months 
ago,  could  I  remain  bound  up  with  a  body  which  still 
rested  upon  authority ;  how  could  I  live  any  longer  in 
the  Cluirch  ? 

Again,  on  the  question  of  the  greatest  of  all  religious 
concej)tions, —  the  idea  of  a  universal  Church, —  I  felt  that 
the  theory  of  the  Clmrch  was  not  only  inadequate,  but 
contradictory.  The  theory  of  the  Church  excludes  from 
its  fold  all  who  do  not  agree  with  it,  all  who  will  not 
either  confess  its  creeds  or  acknowledge  the  su23remacy 
of  the  Bible  as  infallible,  or  bend  to  its  spiritual  decrees. 
And  the  Church  is  not  alone  in  this.  Almost  all  sects 
that  differ  from  it  have  also  their  exclusive  confessions, 
and  many  are  more  exclusive  than  the  Church  itself. 
Now,  this  exclusiveness  and  its  fruits  seemed  to  me  to  be 
at  the  root  of  nearly  half  the  evils  which  had  connected 
themselves  with  religion.  In  the  irdst,  it  made  intoler- 
ance and  2^ersecutiou  a  Christian  duty :  in  the  present,  it 
is  a  source  of  daily  violation  of  Christian  love,  both  in 
public  and  private.  It  guaranteed  exclusiveness  as  a  re- 
ligious necessity,  promoted  Pharisaism,  and  by  calling 
those  who  did  not  agree  with  the  Church  or  with  a  Con- 
fession infidels  or  heretics  made  them  infidels  and  kept 
them  heretics.    This  theory,  too,  denied,  in  my  mind. 


SALT  WITHOUT  SAVOE. 


337 


the  mighty  concoptiou  -which  Christ  gave  to  the  world 
of  a  universal  fatherhood  in  God,  and  of  a  universal 
brotherhood  among  men,  of  God  incarnate  in  all  men,  of 
the  eternal  and  necessary  bond  that  binds  God  to  every 
single  soul ;  of  a  universal  Church  which  embraces  all  the 
race  which  now  exists,  in  ideal,  but  which  will  be  com- 
pleted in  fact  in  the  future.  These  vast  and  glorious 
ideas,  which,  taken  together,  form  the  most  magnificent 
concejition  of  Christendom,  are  suj^pressed  and  stifled  by 
the  theory  of  the  Church,  and  by  the  exclusiveness  of 
sects  which  bind  up  themselves  within  the  limits  of  con- 
fessions. Churches  and  sects  talk  of  the  Church  of  God 
and  of  the  world,  as  if  they  were  two  distinct  things,  not 
only  in  fact,  but  absolutely  in  idea, —  as  if  there  were  a 
final  and  necessary  sejjaration  between  the  two.  The 
true  view  is,  I  believe,  that  the  world  and  all  mankind  is 
the  Church  of  God,  and  all  men  in  idea  are  redeemed, 
but  not  as  yet  saved ;  that  the  idea  will  be  realized  in 
full  at  last,  and  humanity,  one  and  all,  made  the  absolute 
Son  of  God.  This  idea  is  lost,  nay,  is  contradicted  by 
the  theory  of  the  Church,  not,  indeed,  by  all  who  belong 
to  the  Church,  but  by  the  very  theory  on  which  it  exists. 
But  it  is  the  idea  which  of  all  is  the  most  deejjly  rooted 
and  most  ardent  and  most  enkindling  in  my  faith. 
Therefore,  when  I  came  to  see  that  it  was  not  compati- 
ble with  the  Church,  or  with  joining  any  sect  which  de- 
manded assent  to  creeds  or  confessions  as  necessary  to 
salvation,  I  could  neither  stay  in  the  Church  nor  join  a 
sect. 

Lastly,  I  found  no  rest  finally  for  my  foot  among  any 
of  the  parties  in  the  Church,  and,  least  of  all,  among  the 
liberal  Church  party.    Two  clear  schemes  of  doctrine 


338 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


existed  in  the  Church  some  years  ago,  and  were  broadly 
characterized  as  High  Church  and  Low  Church.  Both 
of  these  schemes  have  lived  for  centuries,  and  they  are 
logical  within  themselves,  and  being,  indeed,  the  outcome 
of  two  parts  of  human  nature,  had  and  still  possess  tre- 
mendous power  over  the  minds  of  men.  Both  are  op- 
posed to  each  other,  radically  opposed ;  and  many  years 
ago,  when  a  new  religious  fervor  began  to  stir  in  the 
Church,  these  two  schemes  of  doctrine,  being  excited 
through  that  fervor,  began  to  clash,  and  finally  clashed  in 
a  great  trial,  so  that  a  split  seemed  inevitable,  and  one 
or  other  of  the  jjarties  seemed  impelled  to  leave  the 
Church.  It  was  then  that  the  law,  to  whose  sentence 
the  matter  was  referred,  affirmed  that  both  these  parties, 
so  opposite,  could  justly  and  conscientiously  exist  within 
the  Church.  And,  when  that  was  so  found,  then  the  old 
notion  of  a  comprehensive  Church,  which  might  repre- 
sent all  phases  of  belief  in  the  nation,  began  to  take  a 
new  consistency  in  men;  and  this  notion  of  making  the 
Church  comjirehensive  soon  extended  itself.  To  many 
persons,  among  whom  I  found  myself,  both  these  theo- 
logical schools  of  which  I  speak  were  abhorrent,  and 
these  persons,  of  whom,  as  I  said,  I  became  one,  caught 
at  the  idea  of  widening  the  Church,  and,  when  the  com- 
promise afforded  in  the  case  of  the  Gorham  Judgment 
gave  them  hope,  formed  a  fresh  party  in  the  Church,  and 
strove  to  naturalize  within  its  limits  a  liberal  theologj\ 
"The  Church  was  a  Church  of  compromise,"  they  said; 
"  and  everything  the  law  allowed  them  to  say  they  would 
say."  In  that  way,  by  introducing  liberal  views  into  the 
Church,  they  tried  to  make  these  views  slowly  at  home 
within  its  fold.    The  Church,  they  believed,  finding 


SALT  WITHOUT  SAVOR. 


339 


these  views  at  Lome  witliin  it,  would  naturally  expand, 
open  its  arms  wider,  and  lessen  the  severity  of  its  tenets. 
And,  indeed,  that  has  been  done.  It  was  a  tenable  jjosi- 
tion,  upon  the  ground  that  the  law,  which  only  takes 
notice  of  the  agreement  of  words,  was  the  Judge  of  the- 
ology; and  it  Avas  further  tenable  so  long  as  the  jaublic 
understood  and  recognized  that  position.  But  when  the 
theory  of  that  party  should  come  to  be  pushed  too  far, 
and  come  into  contact  with  vital  and  2:)ressing  questions, 
it  was  certain  to  break  down.  There  comes  a  time  when 
compromise  is  incomprehensible,  and  that  time  has  come 
now.  Compromise  has  done  its  work,  it  has  expanded 
the  Church,  it  has  modified  its  tests.  It  has  made  the 
whole  tone  of  the  Church  more  tolerant,  while  the  jiower 
of  the  Church  as  a  religious  body  has  increased,  and 
justly  and  nobly  increased,  owing  to  the  theory  of  the 
liberal  party  within  the  Church.  But  you  cannot  strain 
even  an  elastic  body  beyond  a  certain  point ;  and  if  it 
should  come  to  be  said  —  and  there  are  some  symptoms 
of  such  a  thing — that  the  liberal  clergy  in  the  Church 
may  say  anything,  may  deny  the  miracles  and  the  divin- 
ity, not  to  say  the  Godhead  of  Christ,  may  abandon  the 
Incarnation  and  the  Resurrection  as  miracles  and  utterly 
deny  the  authority  of  the  Church  and  of  the  Bible  and 
yet  cling  to  the  Church,  then  they  will  find  that  the 
strain  will  be  too  great  for  themselves,  for  their  congre- 
gations, for  the  endurance  of  the  Church  and  for  the 
sympathy  and  belief  of  the  laity. 

It  will  be  better  then  for  the  great  cause  of  religious 
life  in  the  nation  that  these  persons  who  may  come  to 
push  compromise  so  far  should  understand  and  frankly 
accept  the  fact  that  compromise  has  already  reached  its 


340 


FAITH  AND  FKEEDOM. 


limits,  and  either  revert  to  the  position  occupied  a  few 
years  ago  (and  which  is  now  occupied  by  the  greater 
number  of  them  with  a  clear  conscience)  or  choose  a 
position  outside  the  Church.  That  was  my  personal 
oj^inion ;  and  I  only  exjDress  it  now  in  self-defejice,  and 
not  m  attacking  others.  I  was  convmced  that  the  whole 
of  religion  was  suffering  from  tlie  state  of  compromise, — 
not  the  religion  of  persons  who  are  already  religious,  but 
the  chances  of  religion  in  the  great  masses  of  men  who 
had  been  affected  by  unbelief  in  God  or  unbelief  in 
Christianity.  The  High  Church  and  the  Low  Church  do 
not  comjjromise  at  all:  they  deliberately  oj^pose  those 
who  deny  miracles,  and  those  who  support  the  doctrine 
of  the  Broad  Church.  Every  one  understands  their  posi- 
tion. But  the  liberal  party  in  the  Church,  not  opposing 
those  who  deny  the  miracles  or  attack  doctrines,  com- 
promise the  matter  by  piitting  aside  the  question,  sjieak- 
ing  of  Christianity  as  a  beautiful  moral  system  which  is 
not  really  founded  uj^on  miracles  or  upon  dogmas,  but 
lives  in  the  life  of  the  heart.  But  the  question  cannot  be 
put  aside,  and  the  method  of  the  liberal  party  in  the 
Church  cannot  be  pushed  further  with  advantage  to  the 
religious  life  of  the  nation.  To  say  nothing  about  miracles 
when  the  question  is  leajjing  into  the  mind  of  every  one, 
to  say  simply  that  Christianity  does  not  rest  ixi^on  them,  is 
to  act  as  men  say  the  ostrich  acts.  There  is  the  question 
vivid,  full-grown,  shouting  like  Achilles  in  the  trench; 
and  the  Trojans  smiling  within  the  walls,  and  saying  that 
it  is  not  a  question  at  all. 

And  the  other  questions,  too,  which  press  for  solution, 
owing  to  the  A'ast  changes  which  science  has  Avrought  in 
the  views  of  history  and  the  physical  world,  are  too  vital, 


SALT  WITHOUT  SAVOE. 


341 


too  close  to  the  homes  and  hearts  and  brains  of  men  for 
a  farther  compromise :  they  involve  the  very  heart  of 
religion ;  and  men  who  love  religion  and  believe  in  Chris- 
tianity as  the  saving  power  of  the  race,  and  yet  who  do 
not  see  how  they  can  without  self-inflicted  blindness  deny 
that  the  results  of  science  and  criticism  have  changed  the 
whole  aspect  of  religious  questions,  have  no  business  to 
ignore  by  silence  or  to  pass  by  only  with  allusions  these 
questions,  in  order  that  they  may  by  their  inaction  widen 
the  Church.  They  will  not  widen  it,  and  the  very  life 
of  religion  is  in  danger  among  the  masses  of  the  23eo])le. 
It  is  no  time  to  think  only  of  a  side  issue,  and  to  try  it. 
It  was  because  I  was  convinced  of  the  harm  being  done 
by  this  mode  of  action  to  religious  life  among  the  people 
that  I  resolved  to  give  up  that  action  for  another,  and 
can  only  try  it  outside  the  Church;  for  the  moment  I 
proclaimed  my  unbelief  in  miracles  —  for  exam23le,  in  the 
Mii-acle  of  the  Incarnation  —  I  could  not  remain  in  the 
Church,  even  were  I  allowed  to  remain,  and  hope  to  do 
any  good.  Every  one  would  accuse  me  of  dishonesty. 
Now  it  is  different.  Now  I  know  that  I  shall  be  able  to 
declare  that,  while  I  frankly  accept  the  proved  conclu- 
sions of  science  and  criticism,  there  remain  yet  to  me  un- 
touched and  clear  the  great  spiritual  truths  of  the  soul, 
the  eternal  revelation  of  God,  the  deep  life  of  Chris- 
tianity. I  am  free,  and  I  am  heartily  glad  of  it.  I  make 
no  sacrifice.  I  have  followed  with  joy  and  gladness  my 
own  convictions,  and  look  forward  with  ardor  and  with 
emotion  to  preaching  the  great  truths  that  declare  the 
divine  relations  of  God  and  man.  I  shall  speak  of  God 
abiding  in  natvire  and  abiding  in  man,  of  God  immanent 
in  history  and  filling  and  impelling,  day  by  day,  the  race 


342 


FAITH  AND  FREEDOM. 


of  man  to  a  glorious  and  a  righteous  end :  of  the  revelar 
tion  he  is  daily  giving  of  himself  to  man  and  of  the  in- 
spiration which  he  pours  into  us  all ;  of  God  as  revealed 
in  the  highest  way  through  Jesus  Christ,  my  master;  of 
the  life  which  Christ  has  disclosed  in  his  own  life,  as  the 
true  life  of  mankind ;  of  the  power  and  love  by  which 
God  through  him  kindles  and  supports  that  love ;  of  man 
reconciled  to  God  throl^gh  Christ,  and  reconciled  to  his 
brother  man ;  of  God  incarnate  in  all  men  in  the  same 
manner,  though  not  in  the  same  degree  as  he  was  incar- 
nate in  Christ ;  of  the  A-ast  spiritual  communion  in  which 
all  men  are  contained,  and  the  depth  of  the  immortality 
in  which  they  now  live  and  the  fulfilment  of  which  is 
their  destiny ;  of  the  personal  life  of  God  in  the  soul 
and  of  his  universal  life  in  the  race,  and  of  a  thousand 
results  which  in  human  history  and  human  life  flow  in 
practice  from  the  vivid  existence  of  these  mighty  truths 
in  man.  Can  I,  then,  be  sorrowful  as  I  look  forward,  or 
look  back  with  any  dim  regret?  Perfect  freedom  in 
these  truths  ought  to  kindle  and  to  insjiire.  Oh !  pray 
that  I  may  always  keej)  their  ardor  within  me,  and  that 
in  humility  I  may  strive  to  be  worthy  of  them  and  teach 
them,  that  the  Fatlier  of  light  and  of  life  may  be  with 
me,  and  that  humbly  and  faithfully  I  may  serve  God,  my 
Father,  Avalking  in  the  footsteps  of  my  master,  Jesus 
Christ. 


INSTITUTE  ESSAYS: 

READ  BEFORE  THE  "  MINISTERS'  INSTITUTE,"  PROVI- 
DENCE, R.I.,  OCTOBER,  1879. 

CONTENTS : 

INTRODUCTION  Kev.  H.  W.  BELLOWS. 

Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost  Kev.  S.  R.  Calthrop. 

The  Relation  op  Modern  Philosopht  to  Lib- 
eralism,  Prof.  C.  C.  Everett. 

Influence  op  Philosophy  upon  Christianity,  F.  E.  Abbot. 

Monotheism  and  the  Jews  Dr.  GusTAV  Gottheil. 

The  Idea  op  God  Rev.  J.  W.  Chadwick. 

The  Authorship  op  the  Fourth  Gospel,  .  .  .  Prof.  Ezra  Abbot. 

The  Gospel  op  John  Rev.  Francis  Tiffany. 

Methods  op  Dealino  with  Social  Questions,  Rev.  J.  B.  Harrison. 
Ethical  Law  and  Social  Order  Rev.  Geo.  Batchelor. 

"To  the  reader  of  comparative  theologies,  this  book  has  a  special  interest."— 
Ziojt^s  Herald. 

"  The  publication  of  this  volume  is  one  of  the  prreat  tide-marks  of  theological 
progress  in  the  United  States."— /"ree  Religious  Jjidex. 

"Of  all  the  compilations  to  which  Unitarian  discussions  have  given  rise,  this 
will  be  found  the  most  solid  and  meaty."— Chi-istia7i  Begister. 

"  The  cause  of  Unitarianism  will  have  to  take  care  of  itself ;  but  it  is  a  matter 
of  great  public  importance  when  clergymen,  however  stationed  in  practical  life, 
adt&ess  themselves  without  reserve  and  without  qualification  to  the  ascertain 
ment  of  philosophic  truth.  How  well  this  has  been  done  at  the  Providence 
meeting  of  the  'Institute'  is  shown  by  this  volume,  which  is  entitled  to  the  cor- 
dial attention  not  only  of  students  of  theology,  but  also  of  those  interested  in 
high  truth.  Those  who  know  enough,  and  those  whose  religious  system  has  been 
completed,  had  better  not  approach  a  volume  which,  to  a  seeker  after  facts.  Is 
wonderfully  grateful  and  stlmu'ating. "—£os(on  Advertiser. 

8vo,  280  pp.  Cloth,  $1.2.5;  paper,  *1.00. 


THREE  PHASES  OF  MODERN  THEOLOGYs 

CALVINISM,  UNITARIANISM,  LIBERALISM. 

By  JOSEPH  HENRY  ALLEN,  A.M., 
lecturer  on  ecclesiastical  history  in  harvard  university. 

"  The  addresses  rest  throughout  on  Christian  theism,  the  ethical  spirit,  the 
temperate  soul,  vast  reading,  and  good  judgment.  They  are  singularly  dispas 
sionate  and  well  balanced,  and  good  readers  will  find  them  healthful  as  well  as 
stimulating  and  helpful."— /ios(o;i  Advertiser. 

8vo,  68  pp.  Paper.  Price  35  cents. 


THE  MINISTER'S  HAND-BOOK, 

FOR   CHRISTENINGS,    WEDDINGS,    AND  FUNERALS, 

COMPILED  AND  ARRANGED 
By  Rev.  MINOT  J.  SAVAGE. 

This  little  volume  contains  a  service  for  the  bajjtism  of  children,  several  forms 
of  marriage  service,  and  a  variety  of  burial  semces,  with  a  number  of  selections 
£n  prose  and  poetry  suitable  for  use  at  funerals.  At  the  end  of  the  book  are  a 
dozen  blank  pages,  for  such  additions  as  individual  taste  may  indicate.  It  is  well 
printed  in  clear,  large  type,  and  put  up  in  neat,  tiexible  binding,  ite  size  and  shape 
being  arranged  especially  tor  the  pocket. 

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AUTHORSHIP  OF  THE  FOURTH  GOSPEL: 


EXTERNAL  EVIDENCES. 


By   EZRA    ABBOT,    D.  D.,  LL.D., 

Bussey  Professor  of  New  Testament  Criticism  mid  Interpretation  in  the  Divinity 
School  of  Uarvard  University. 

This  essay,  originally  read  before  the  Ministers'  Institute,  at  Provi- 
dence, R.I.,  in  1879,  and  since  then  revised  and  greatly  expanded, 
comes  most  appositely  at  a  time  when  a  destructive  school  of  criticism 
is  subjecting  the  origin  and  authenticity  of  the  various  books  of  the 
Bible  to  the  most  searching  investigation.  Professor  Abbot  is  emi- 
nently qualified  for  the  discussion  which  he  has  undertaken.  A  valued 
member  of  the  Anglo-American  Bible  Revision  Committee,  he  is 
acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the  foremost  scholars  of  Christendom  in 
his  department.  This  essay  is  right  in  the  line  of  his  life  studies, 
and  bears  everywhere  unmistakable  marks  of  conscientious  labor. 
Religious  papers  of  all  denominations  unite  in  bearing  testimony  to  its 
value ;  and  it  has  been  fairly  pronounced  by  a  writer  in  the  Popular 
Science  Monthly  for  August  "  a  masterpiece  of  critical  scholarship." 

"  Professor  Abbot  is  familiar  with  the  almost  immense  literature  of  his  subject 
as  no  other  American  is,  and  probably  he  has  not  over  four  or  five  jjeers  abroad. 
He  professes  to  belong  to  the  liberal  school  of  theology,  whence  his  conclusion 
derives  a  twofold  interest.  It  is,  thus  far,  the  principal  contribution  of  the  year 
to  American  theology,  and  cannot  easily  be  overrated.  Those  who  wish  to  boast 
Of  American  theology,  without  making  themselves  ridiculous,  will  do  well  to 
appeal  to  Abbot  on  St.  John."—  Boston  Advertiser. 

"  There  is  no  higher  authority  on  this  subject  in  America  than  Professor 
Abbot.  There  is  no  more  competent  scholar  in  Germany. . . .  The  book  may  be 
said  to  be  the  most  important  contribution  to  this  department  of  Bibucal 
apologetics  that  has  been  made  in  America  since  Norton's  work."— JV^.  y.  Inde- 
pendent. 

"  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  Professor  Abbot  has  laid  aU  Christian  scholars 
under  a  deep  debt  of  obligation  by  the  thoroughness  of  his  researches  into  a 
qiiestion  of  primary  interest  and  importance.  As  the  result,  he  may  be  con- 
sidered to  have  completely  turned  the  tables  upon  the  opponents  of  the  Apostolic 
authorship.  To  Bishop  Lightfoot  and  Professor  Drummond,  much  praise  is  due 
for  their  investigations  in  this  field  ;  but  to  Professor  Abbot  clearly  belongs  the 
palm.  No  one  before  him  had  so  completely  mastered  the  literature  of  the  early 
Christian  period.  His  reading  seems  to  liave  embraced  everything,  and  his 
memory  to  retain  everything  ou  the  subject." —  Christian  Life  (English). 

"  The  present  volume  is  the  fruit  of  the  author's  well-known  ripe  scholarship, 
keen  insight,  and  accuracy  almost  proverbial,  and  cannot  fail  to  take  rank  with 
the  foremost  publications  on  the  general  subject,  both  here  and  on  the  other 
side  of  the  Atlantic.  It  is  made  available  to  more  of  the  clerical  profession  than 
such  books  usually  are,  by  introducing  patristic  and  other  quotations  in  English, 
where  practicable,  in  a  simple  and  literal  translation.  Scarcely  anywhere  will 
the  reader  find  such  a  well-digested  stock  of  information,  and  such  forcible,  not 
to  say  irrefragable,  argument  to  prove  the  genuineness  of  John's  Gospel." — 
Sunday  School  Times. 

"  Professor  Abbot's  discussion  is  simply  admirable,  both  for  its  research  and 
its  reasoning.  It  condenses  into  itself  years  of  study.  Nothing  seems  to  have 
escaped  the  author,  and  his  presentaticm  of  the  argument  is  unsurpassed  in  its 
judicial  fairness  and  its  good  sense.  In  .short,  the  discussion  is  the  ablest  vindi- 
cation of  historic  truth  respecting  the  Fourth  Gospi  l  which  has  appeared  for 
manyaday, —  a  discussion  which  will  compel  the  attention,  and.  as  we  believe, 
the  assent  of  the  foremost  European  scholars.  It  is  one  of  the  most  thorough 
critical  essays  ever  produced  in  this  country." 

8vo.   104  pp.   Price,  Cloth,  75  Cents.   Paper,  50  Cents. 


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Geo.  H.  Ellis,  Publisher,  141  Franklin  Street,  Boston. 


MINOT  J.  SAVAGE'S  BOOKS. 


"  Since  Theodore  Parker  died,  there  has  been  no  clergyman  more  worthy  or  more 
capable  of  tcearing  his  mantle  than  Mr.  Savage." — Boston  Sunday  HEliALD. 

(Just  Ready.) 
BELIEF  IN  GOD. 

I.  Introduction.  II.  Origin  and  Development  of  the  Idea  of  God. 
III.  Doea  God  Exist?  IV.  Can  we  Know  God  ?  V.  Is  God  Con- 
scious, Personal,  and  Good  ?  VI.  Why  does  not  God  Reveal  Him- 
self ?  VII.  Shall  we  Worship  God  ?  VIII.  Shall  we  Pray  to  God  ? 
IX.  The  Glory  and  the  Shame  of  Atheism.  X.  The  Intellectual 
Basis  of  Faith  (by  Wm.  H.  Savage). 

In  this  latest  work  by  Mr.  Savage,  considered  by  many  his  best,  ho  meets  with 
characteristic  fearlessness  some  of  the  fundamental  problems  of  Theism  which 
must  some  day  present  themselves  to  every  thoughtful  mind,  and  discusses  them 
In  a  spirit  of  reverent  rationalism.  Even  those  who  cannot  agree  with  Mr.  Sav- 
age in  all  points  will  find  much  to  commend  in  this  volume. 

Cloth.   13mo.  176  pp.  Price  $1.00. 

THE  MORALS  OF  EVOLUTION. 

I.  Is  Life  worth  Living?  II.  Morality  and  Religion  in  the  Past, 
m.  The  Origin  of  Goodness.  IV.  The  Kature  of  Goodness.  V.  The 
Sense  of  Obligation.  VI.  Selfishness  and  Sacrifice.  VII.  The  Rela- 
tivity of  Duty.  VIII.  Real  and  Conventional  Virtues  and  Vices. 
IX.  Morals  and  Knowledge.  X.  Rights  and  Duties  in  Matters  of 
Opinion.  XI.  Moral  Sanctions.  XII.  Morality  and  Religion  in  the 
Future. 

"  We  should  very  much  like  to  meet  with  the  pulpit  orator  who  would  treat  us 
to  a  dozen  extempore  sermons  as  healthy  in  tone  and  as  devoid  of  archaisms  as 
are  the  contents  of  this  little  book.  There  is  not  a  trace  of  any  antaaonism  to 
venerable  creeds.  On  the  contrary,  the  author's  acceptance  of  Christian  theism 
is  firm  and  clear ;  but  there  is  so  complete  an  absence  of  the  traditional 
phraseolofry  of  the  pulpit,  and  such  an  inartificial  representation  of  the  best 
spirit  of  the  age,  that  the  reader  totallv  forgets  he  has  before  him  the  steno- 
graphic report  of  a  series  of  seventh-day  homilies."—  Westminster  Review. 

Cloth,  l^mo.   191  pp.  Price  $1.00. 

TALKS  ABOUT  JESUS. 

I.  Tntroduction.  II.  Sources  of  our  Knowledge.  III.  The  Mi- 
raculous. IV.  Birth  and  Childhood.  V.  Public  Life.  VI.  Death 
and  Resurrection.  VII.  The  Messianic  Idea.  VIII.  Jesus  and  the 
Church;  or,  Was  Jesus  a  Christian  ?  IX.  Jesus  and  Humanity;  or, 
Christianity  among  the  Religions. 

"  This  book  is  well  adapted  to  the  needs  of  the  questioner,  coming  as  it  does 
from  one  who  '  has  fought  over  the  whole  ground  of  modern  scepticism  In  a 
hand-to-hand  contest  with  its  shadows  and  facts.'  "—Unity. 

Cloth.  12mo.   101  pp.  Price  SI. 00. 

CHRISTIANITY  the  SCIENCE  of  MANHOOD. 

A  BOOK  FOR  QUESTIONERS. 

"  It  is  a  thoroughly  good  book  to  place  in  the  hands  of  a  voung  man  ;  and  it  is 
written  in  a  style  so  spriLihtly  and  popular  that  he  will  find  "his  attention  held  to 
It,  while  his  mind  is  persuaded  by  its  convincing  reasonings."— Eton's  Herald. 

Third  edition.  Cloth.   ISmo.  187  pp.  Price  Sl.OO. 


Geo.  H.  Ellis,  Publisher,  141  Franklin  St.,  Boston. 


THE  DUTIES  OF  WOMEN. 

A  COURSE  OF  LECTURES 
By  FRANCES   POWER  COBBE. 


CRITICAL  NOTICES. 
An  eminent  American  clergyman,  writing  from  London,  gays  ;  — 
"  It  is  the  profoundest,  wisest,  purest,  noblest  book,  in  principle,  aim,  and  tone, 
yet  written  upon  the  True  Position  of  Woman  in  Society.  It  should  be  circu- 
lated far  and  wide  among  all  classes  of  our  countrywomen.  It  should  be  made 
a  class-book  in  our  schools.  It  should  become  the  '  Hand-Book '  and  Vade  Mecum 
of  young  American  girls." 

"  As  I  turn  the  pages  of  this  book,  I  am  struck  with  its  candor,  sympathy,  and 
insight,  and  wish  that  it  might  be  read  and  pondered  by  both  conservative  and 
radical  women.  The  former  mlglit  learn  the  relation  of  freedom  to  duty,  and  the 
latter  may  well  consider  the  perils  which  surround  each  onward  step. . .  .  Miss 
Cobbe  might  have  called  her  book  'Old  Duties  in  New  Lights.'  It  must  help 
many  women  to  lead  sincere,  self-reliant  lives,  and  to  determine  at  critical 
moments  what  their  action  shall  he."— Mrs.  Elizabeth  K.  Churchill,  in  the  Provi- 
dence Journal. 

"  The  best  of  all  books  on  'Women's  Duties.'  Now  that  George  Eliot  is  gone, 
there  is  probably  no  woman  in  England  so  well  equipped  for  general  literary 
work  as  Miss  Cobbe."—  Col.  T.  Wentworth  Iligginson,  in  Woman's  Journal. 

"  I  desire  to  commend  it  to  the  careful  perusal  of  women  in  our  own  country, 
as  a  book  full  of  timely  counsel  and  suggestion,  and  to  all,  as  a  valuable  contn- 
bution  to  the  literatiu'e  of  ethics." — Julia  Ward  Ilowe,  in  Christian  Register. 

"  Just  now,  the  first  •  Duty  of  Women '  is  to  read  this  whole  book  with  studious 
self-application;  for  it  is  rich  in  saving  common  sense,  warm  with  the  love  of 
man,  and  consecrated  by  the  love  of  God."— Miss  Harriet  Ware  Hall,  in  Unitarian 
Review. 

"  What  Is  best  In  the  whole  book  Is  that  she  founds  her  teaching  for  women  so 
strongly  in  the  deepest  and  simplest  moral  principles  th.at  her  thoughts  come 
with  a  force  and  breadth  which  win  for  them  at  once  a  respectable  hearing,"— 
London  Spectator. 

"  One  of  the  notable  books  of  the  season.  . .  .  No  true  woman  can  read  these 
lectures  without  being  stirred  by  them  to  completer  'iite."— Morning  Star. 

"  In  Miss  Cobbe's  latest  book, '  The  Duties  of  Women ,'  there  is  much  to  be  com- 
mended for  its  common  sense  and  its  helpfulness.  Miss  Cobbe  goes  down  to  the 
principles  underlying  the  topics  of  which  she  speaks;  and  the  strength  with 
which  she  utters  her  thoughts  is  the  strength  of  conviction  and  of  earnest  pur- 
pose."— Sunday  School  Times. 

"  No  book  has  come  from  England  this  year,  which  was  better  worthy  of 
reproduction  than  this  one." — Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 

"  The  six  lectures  may  be  said  to  be  the  very  acme,  in  facile  strength  and 
clearness  and  power  of  reasoning,  of  a  long  life  of  most  efficient  and  noble  labor 
In  the  cause  of  the  elevation  of  woman  and  her  possession  of  the  rights  that  are 
and  should  be  hers.  We  wish  they  might  be  read  by  every  man  and  woman  in 
this  country,  with  an  imderstanding  and  receptive  mind,  free  from  old  notions 
and  prejudices."— i/ome  Journal. 

Author's  American  Edition.  Cloth.  12mo.  Price  $1.00. 


For  sale  by  booksellers,  and  mailed,  postpaid,  on  receipt  oj  the  price,  by 

Geo.  H.  Ellis,  Publisher,  Boston. 


